Women: Violence
	 — 
	Question

Baroness Gale: To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to assess the role of schools in tackling violence against women and girls.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, today DCSF published its response to the recommendations of the Violence against Women and Girls Advisory Group. This sets out a range of actions to support schools in understanding and tackling such issues. We are producing guidance on how to reflect this in the curriculum. We plan to include it in the programme of study for PSHE and to strengthen initial and in-service training, as well as to work to publicise messages to parents.

Baroness Gale: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply. It is good to know that she is responding so positively to the independent working group on violence against women and girls, especially as we celebrate International Women's Day. How will my noble friend assess whether the strategy in schools is working and making a difference? What funding is attached to the strategy?

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, the way in which we will really see the impact of the Government's cross-government strategy on tackling violence against women and girls is by looking at the incidence of domestic violence-at the hard numbers. Two thousand women are raped a week in this country. We know that domestic violence accounts for about 14 per cent of all violent incidents. This is a major challenge for our country, so we will be monitoring the incidence of domestic violence. We have set up a cross-government delivery board, which will report directly to the Home Office, and we are investing £13 million in ensuring that the strategy is implemented across government.

Baroness Verma: My Lords, as we celebrate International Women's Day, can the noble Baroness tell us what measures are being taken to work more closely with all strands of the media to highlight this very serious issue? Does she have figures identifying the scale of the problem among teenagers?

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, the cross-government strategy to tackle violence against women and girls has three strands: prevention, provision of services and protection. I am sure that the noble Baroness will agree that one of the key strands of prevention work must be to work with the media. As she knows, the Government have been running a campaign focusing on violence against teenage girls in teenage relationships. We will be evaluating that very carefully. She is absolutely right: the media have a key role to play. I fear that I have forgotten her second question.

Baroness Walmsley: Does the Minister agree that it is important that children have somebody in school in whom they have the confidence to be able to disclose that they have either directly been subjected to domestic violence or seen their mother subjected to domestic violence? Will she endorse the work of the charity Place2Be and other voluntary organisations that work in schools? What are the Government doing to support schools financially so that they can take on those therapists?

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: I am happy to support the noble Baroness in recognising the work of the charity Place2Be. It is right that we should equip all school staff, through dedicated training as part of the initial teacher training and then through professional development, with the confidence that, where there is a disclosure, they know how to support the child. That is what this review has been all about; it is about looking at what work DCSF should be doing. We accept all the recommendations and we are absolutely committed to getting the funding in the right place and to making sure that schools are confident.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords-

Noble Lords: This side.

Baroness Massey of Darwen: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that schools cannot tackle this very sensitive issue alone and that it is important that schools are part of a whole consortium of children's services, which serve families as well as children?

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: I absolutely agree with my noble friend. We do not expect schools to deal with this issue on their own. We see schools as having a key role to play as one of the many front doors to services and support that children can access; they are part of the community, the children's trust and the key services that play into the local safeguarding children boards. We are acting on recommendations from the noble Lord, Lord Laming, who has advised that we need to strengthen our guidance on how domestic violence services should be tailored and initiated.

Baroness Howarth of Breckland: Does the noble Baroness agree that domestic violence is an extraordinarily complex issue in relation to families and that an understanding of mediation and intervention is needed? Would she endorse the work that social workers do in understanding this and in taking the work forward in the preventive area?

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, I would always be proud to endorse the work that social workers do in this extremely sensitive and difficult area, as the noble Baroness suggests.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords-

The Countess of Mar: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, can come in afterwards. The Minister will be aware that a couple of weeks ago quite a lot was made of educating young men not to beat up young women. Are young women being taught preventive and avoidance measures so that they can defuse situations that might lead to young men beating them up?

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, the most important thing to say in response to that question is that we are expecting schools to promote, through personal, social and health education and through work specifically with younger children, an atmosphere of mutual respect and to combat bullying of any kind. That is the starting point. Then we have to recognise that, where children and young people are affected by sexual or domestic violence, it is important that they know that there are people whom they can trust, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, pointed out. That is what this strategy is about. It is about making schools confident places where young people can seek support when they encounter such dreadful experiences as domestic violence.

Women: Entrepreneurs
	 — 
	Question

Baroness Garden of Frognal: To ask Her Majesty's Government what extra resources are being provided to encourage female entrepreneurs.

Lord Davies of Abersoch: My Lords, our future economic success depends on encouraging more women to start and grow their own business successfully. Matching US levels of female entrepreneurship would contribute an additional estimated £42 billion to the UK economy per year. We are implementing the recommendations made by the Women's Enterprise Task Force, and are working closely with the banks to ensure that women do not face barriers in accessing finance. This includes continuing to implement the Aspire fund, which provides equity funding and increasing networking support for women-led businesses.

Baroness Garden of Frognal: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, and declare an interest as a trustee of Arcubus, a charity that has been set up to bring microfinance opportunities to Mozambique and Tanzania. In these countries, the most effective start-up funding is that given to women, who use immense ingenuity and hard work with very scant resources to set up self-sufficient businesses. By contrast in the UK, women are only half as likely to start up their own businesses as men. My honourable friend the Member for Solihull has started an all-party group on women in enterprise. Will the Government consider reinvesting in initiatives such as the Adult and Community Learning Fund, which is a local resource for women, to give them both the information and the confidence to start up businesses?

Lord Davies of Abersoch: First, may I, on behalf of all the men, wish noble Baronesses a happy International Women's Day, and suggest that we adopt the same practice as Russia and China, where the men give gifts of flowers and chocolates, maybe a year from now?

Noble Lords: Hear, hear.

Lord Davies of Abersoch: I am not sure whether that was a win for the Contents or the Not Contents.
	I agree with the noble Baroness. We in the UK have provided funds for ethnic minority groups. We also have an Aspire fund, as I have said, which provides about £12.5 million. It was launched in November 2008, and is aimed at co-investing and investing in women-led enterprises. Additionally, the community development finance institutions have £50 million, and the regional development agencies are also doing a great job. Collectively, we are doing a huge amount to inspire and finance small businesses that are women led.

Baroness Whitaker: My Lords-

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords-

Baroness Coussins: My Lords-

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, we have plenty of time. Shall we hear first from my noble friend Lady Whitaker, and then from one of the other noble Baronesses who stood up?

Baroness Whitaker: I apologise to the noble Baronesses, but I am enthusiastic to hear my noble friend's answer to the question: would it not be good for economic growth if girls did a wider range of apprenticeships?

Lord Davies of Abersoch: Yes.

Baroness Coussins: Is the Minister aware of the survey of SME finances, conducted by Warwick University, which found that the interest rate that is charged on loans to female-owned businesses was 1 per cent higher than that charged to male-owned businesses? Is this still the case, and if it is, can the Government do anything about it?

Lord Davies of Abersoch: The 2004 report showed that women-owned businesses paid more for term loans compared with male-owned enterprises. However, the 2007 report suggests that there are no gender differences in the cost of term loans. I do not often compliment the banks, but I have to give credit to the Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds and HSBC, which have a whole variety of schemes to support women-led businesses.

Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, when it comes to entrepreneurship, does the Minister regard talent as important as, or more important than, gender?

Lord Davies of Abersoch: The most important thing is that everyone has a right to be treated fairly and to fulfil their potential, and if we are to have a competitive economy we have to draw on all talents and abilities. We need fairness and equality.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: Going back to the Question, I am very much in favour of the feminine influence, but how on earth do you define a female entrepreneur? Is that not a rather dodgy suggestion?

Lord Davies of Abersoch: I am not sure whether that relates to the original Question or to the question that I am addressing now. We are, as I have said, a nation of 4.8 million SMEs. It is estimated that there are some 710,000 women-led businesses. The reality is that if we had the same percentage of women in business as America has-this is very much a cultural thing-we would have another 600,000 to 700,000 businesses in the UK. This is something that we have to put right.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, given that the Sex Discrimination Act is now 40 years old, that only 5.2 per cent of executive directorships of the British FTSE 100 companies are held by women, and that, believe it or not, 25 of those companies do not have a single woman on their board, what extra resources and plans will the Government use to ensure that women's entrepreneurial talents will emerge to the necessary managerial levels for the UK to compete successfully in an increasingly global market?

Lord Davies of Abersoch: As I said before, it is not acceptable that 25 per cent of the FTSE 100 companies do not have women on their boards. In my view, progress has been far too slow; a large number of extremely able women just below the boardroom level are unable to get onto boards. Therefore, we today published a letter to the Financial Reporting Council, basically asking every public company to explain why they do not have a woman on their board, and we will name and shame those companies. We need to put this right.

Lord Razzall: My Lords, is the Minister prepared to explain why we do so much worse in this area than, for example, Canada? In Canada, the number of women in professional occupations in business and finance has risen by more than 50 per cent in the past decade, four out of five businesses are now started by women, and almost half of all small and medium-sized companies have at least one female owner.

Lord Davies of Abersoch: It is important to put this in context. I think we do match the G7 in terms of the percentage of women in business, but we do not match the US. The Women's Enterprise Task Force is implementing those recommendations, but it needs a partnership between business, the RDAs, Business Link, and Enterprise UK. The Prime Minister and I had breakfast this morning with 20 leading women across a whole range of sectors. We need better role models, better mentoring and a fundamental change of culture in the UK.

Women: Under-Representation in the Political System
	 — 
	Question

Baroness Williams of Crosby: To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of how other countries address the under-representation of women in the political system, including India.

Lord Brett: My Lords, we welcome the range of initiatives and progress that many countries have madein promoting women's political participation. Experience demonstrates that increasing the number and effectiveness of women parliamentarians requires a combination of different approaches. Progress in Rwanda, and in India at the local level, provides evidence of how this can be done.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer, and wonder why we do not address the single greatest obstacle. I remind him that, in the list of countries with democratic Parliaments, the United Kingdom comes 68th;the United States comes 82nd. Is he aware that, in the top 20 democratically elected Parliaments in the world, those elected by proportional representation take 19 out of the top 20 positions, and those who seek to stick by the first past the post system fall to the lower levels I have already described in the case of the United Kingdom and the United States?

Lord Brett: My Lords, I might have guessed that proportional representation would come into this. However, my statistics say that the United Kingdom comes 62nd rather than 68th, although that is nothing to boast about. In essence, the evidence seems to show that where quotas are the chosen vehicle to increase participation of women in Parliaments, that is the most successful endeavour. In the largest democracy in the world, and one of the greatest-India-a piece of legislation supported by the Cabinet will go before Parliament which, if passed, will mean that the representation of women in the Indian Parliament will reach 33 per cent, or one third. We can make progress, but the noble Baroness is absolutely right: we should be celebrating today the cause, not the success. We still have a lot more to do.

Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, on which there is a woman from every nation in the world? Many years ago I represented this country on that commission, and very useful it was because you then knew a woman from every country, including from this country a representative from the trade union for prostitutes.

Lord Brett: My Lords, I have been to 140 countries in the world and I think I know a woman in every one, but so far as I know, none was in the occupation represented by the trade union mentioned by the noble Baroness. What is more important is that we have an effective United Nations agency that can put forward, represent and press women's issues. That is something which the UK Government support, and while we are making progress in this and in many other areas, it is not as quick as we would like. The only certainty is that greater perseverance will make things happen sooner.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, on this day in particular, we should acknowledge that in this non-elected House we are led by a woman, we have a woman in the Speaker's place, and the opposition Chief Whip is a woman?

Lord Brett: My Lords, I would go further and say that in this House we are represented to the extent of around 20 per cent by women of distinction. Perhaps I may transgress parliamentary procedure and answer a question put to me earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale. We will have equality when women have to be equally adequate to men, not superior.

Lord Wright of Richmond: My Lords, may I draw attention to the fact that the Cross-Benches have a female Convenor?

Lord Brett: My Lords, in my acknowledgment of the distinguished Members of your Lordships' Chamber, I have taken the point on board.

Baroness Prosser: My Lords, for the sake of accuracy, perhaps I may point out that the English Collective of Prostitutes at King's Cross is not a trade union.

Noble Lords: Oh!

Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, will the Minister join me in welcoming the example of Rwanda, which he mentioned earlier, where over 50 per cent of the national parliamentarians are women, and that of Oman, which has had a woman Minister for higher education for quite a while? She is the first woman Cabinet Minister in the Gulf region. What assessment have the Government made of how such political representation might be translated to work in other societies?

Lord Brett: The noble Baroness has made an important point. Our efforts through DfID mean that we support whole systems of empowering women. It is a matter of culture, history and prejudice that women do not hold a greater proportion not only of positions as Members of Parliament but also of positions of power within Parliaments. However, successes have included countries such as Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, Namibia and the large, important country of South Africa. We seek to support organisations involved in education, networking and preparation in order to ensure that our female population does not experience the sense of being denied, most importantly by the sector of the population which denies them: men.

Baroness Northover: My Lords, has the noble Lord noted that three countries, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland, have moved beyond even needing to use quotas, having done so for many years? Following on from the Question put by my noble friend, even if it is not in his brief, does the Minister welcome, as I do, the Government's late conversion to proportional representation, and does he not agree that that, coupled with quotas, will transform our political system?

Lord Brett: I think I answered the original Question by talking about a combination of different approaches, and it is important that those approaches sit well with the country. It is easy to advise and to offer assistance, but what we must not do is seek to preach or determine other people's ways of arriving at greater representation. In that sense, countries which have moved beyond quotas are to be welcomed. They will find their own salvation, as we will, and the sooner that happens, the better.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: Is my noble friend aware that the Parliament of the United Kingdom with the largest percentage of women is the Scottish Parliament? However, the largest percentage of those were elected not through proportional representation but by the first past the post system?

Lord Brett: My Lords, for the past few minutes I have stoutly avoided entering into an argument about the form of participatory democracy; I shall continue to resist.

Women: Latin America
	 — 
	Question

Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen: To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they are taking to support Latin American Governments in improving the position of women in their countries.

Lord Brett: The Department for International Development is providing £17 million over three years, 2008-11, to civil society organisations to address inequality and poverty in 14 Latin American countries. This work specifically aims to promote women's inclusion in decision-making and to tackle gender discrimination by working with women and men. Women's rights form an important part of the UK's bilateral dialogue with Latin American Governments.

Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen: I thank my noble friend for that Answer. Is he aware that the Colombian Government have entered into, voluntarily, the universal periodic review of human rights in Colombia and have reported this review to the United Nations Human Rights Council? What has the Government's response been to this review, especially in relation to women?

Lord Brett: My Lords, the United Kingdom Government welcome the emphasis given by the Colombian Government to human rights issues. However, while progress has been made, there remain deep concerns. Reflecting this, the UK has already held discussions with civil society partners in that country and has submitted detailed lists of questions and recommendations to the Colombian Government. These include deepening their engagement with and support for civil society actors, human rights defenders and minority groups; tackling poverty; and looking for the immediate and unconditional release of hostages. We welcome the decision to dismiss a number of military personnel as a result of recent extra-judicial killings and other crimes. We also welcome the initiatives of the High Commission for Human Rights and the International Labour Organisation in strengthening rights in the workplace, the majority of which will benefit women.

Lord Naseby: My Lords, what support have Her Majesty's Government managed to give to the female President of Chile in its hour of need following the earthquake?

Lord Brett: Chile has a President who is seeking, in dire circumstances, to represent that country and is doing an excellent job. On this occasion, the President happens to be a woman. The important thing for Chile is to have an effective President; the fact that she is a woman is a lesson to us all. On this issue, it is not gender that is important but the assistance that we can give.

Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, last year three women received Nobel prizes in the sciences-a record for any year. Does the Minister agree that there needs to be renewed emphasis on education and on allowing women to take decisions about their reproductive and sexual health?

Lord Brett: My Lords, my noble friend's Question related to Latin America. In Latin America and beyond, it is clear that the ending of poverty and the achievement of millennium development goals will not happen unless we can eliminate gender discrimination and give women equal rights. At the other end of the spectrum-we are talking about rights that do not exist or are badly monitored-we can take pride in the fact that women are contributing more and more because they have more and more opportunities. When I asked a High Commissioner in India 15 years ago what would be the best thing to happen for India, he said, "Education of women". It was true then and it is true now. The fact that we have seen greater development of the talents of all our people is to be welcomed. I answered recently the question about sexual health and reproduction; it is an area where women's rights have to be honoured and assisted.

Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, I am sure the Minister is aware that in mining areas in countries such as Ecuador, Guatemala and Peru, women seem more willing to stand up for their rights in respect of water use and so on than men, and often suffer the same kind of nasty penalties for doing so as they have done previously in war-torn situations. What approach have the United Kingdom Government used to encourage Governments and mining companies in these countries to create, enforce and maintain high standards of environmental protection so as to avoid laying waste to the countryside and to address local people's needs for water?

Lord Brett: I appreciate the sentiments behind the question, but I am not sure that deprivation caused by the extractive industries in laying waste large parts of Latin America is a gender-specific issue. It affects families, it affects children, and it is something that we seek to curb internationally, through the extractive industries initiative, the United Nations and other international bodies, to ensure that we have effective and sensitive policies.
	As, I hope, a final contribution to this, I have met women in Latin America who have made me very humble because of their willingness to stand up for their families against the kind of odds against which I do not think that I would have the bravery to stand. In Africa, there are women who, given the freedom, have entrepreneurship that outstrips men by far. We have a world in which we are losing half the development that we could have because we have been too slow on the uptake.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, is the Minister aware that it is not just a question of this Government helping other Governments, but of the NGOs which are based in this country-in the past I was chairman of Plan International-doing a great deal to help in these countries? Above all, apart from helping with water supplies and various other things, education for girls is now the prime object of Plan, and education for women is surely the thing that will ensure the future.

Lord Brett: The noble Baroness is absolutely right. That is why we are supporting, through DfID, a Latin American partnership programme arrangement, which is a partnership between DfID and 12 UK NGOs. Each of these receives £1.4 million and they are working in 14 countries on the issues of accountability, democracy and education. The countries they are working in are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela and they are all the names you would expect: ActionAid; CAFOD; CARE International; Christian Aid; HelpAge International; International HIV/AIDS Alliance; Oxfam GB; Plan UK; Progressio; Save the Children and World Vision.
	Those are the partnerships we need, together with partnerships with Governments, and as soon as possible we should be celebrating the day-though I suspect it will not be in the next few years-when we are able to say that we have achieved the ends to which the whole House, I think, has today been united.

Arrangement of Business
	 — 
	Announcement

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, after completion of the Report stage of the Digital Economy Bill, my noble friend Lord Bach will, with the leave of the House, repeat as a Statement an Urgent Question on the breach of conditions and recall to prison of Jon Venables.

Health Protection (Local Authority Powers) Regulations 2010

Health Protection (Part 2A Orders) Regulations 2010

Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2010

Health Protection (Local Authority Powers) Regulations 2010 
	Health Protection (Part 2A Orders) Regulations 2010
	Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2010
	6th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments

Motion to Approve

Moved By Baroness Thornton
	That the draft order and regulations laid before the House on 19 January be approved.
	Relevant Documents: 6th report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
	Motion agreed.

Welsh Zone (Boundaries and Transfer of Functions) Order 2010

Welsh Zone (Boundaries and Transfer of Functions) Order 2010
	8th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments

Motion to Approve

Moved By Lord Faulkner of Worcester
	That the draft order laid before the House on 27 January be approved.
	Relevant Documents: 8th report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 2 March
	Motion agreed.

Extradition Act 2003 (Amendment to Designations) Order 2010

Extradition Act 2003 (Amendment to Designations) Order 2010 
	8th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments

Motion to Approve

Moved By Lord Brett
	That the draft order laid before the House on 27 January be approved.
	Relevant Documents: 8th report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
	Motion agreed.

Rehabilitation of Offenders (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Main Bill Page
	Copy of the Bill

Report

Report received.

Digital Economy Bill [HL]

Bill Main Page
	Copy of the Bill
	Explanatory Notes
	Amendments

Report (3rd Day)

Clause 30 : Digital switchover
	Amendment 139
	 Moved by Lord De Mauley
	139: Clause 30, page 36, line 35, at end insert ", and
	( ) the establishment of a combined electronic programme guide for analogue and digital stations"

Lord De Mauley: My Lords, I am moving this amendment to pick up on a point that the Government made earlier in the Bill's progress in response to a debate that we had on the future of FM radio. We were reassured by comments made by the Minister in Committee that FM radio stations, particularly local ones, that currently have no plans to migrate to digital are safe. The Minister said that for the foreseeable future following switchover, FM was the right technology for local radio stations. I know that this was of great encouragement to many of those local stations that had previously felt threatened by switchover. Significantly, he stated that the Government were,
	"committed to establishing a combined electronic programme guide for radio".-[Official Report, 3/2/10; col. 279.]
	That is the key to the long-term future of FM radio. Following switchover, listeners should surely be able to switch between stations without even noticing that they have switched from analogue to digital. A combined electronic programme is the way to ensure that that happens. That is why I was pleased to hear from Digital UK that it has developed a prototype for just such a system. Will the Minister elaborate on the Government's plans for the electronic programme guide? What support will the Government give the industry as they continue to take this measure forward? Amendment 139 would ensure that this had to happen before a switchover date was nominated. While of course we appreciate that the Government might have alternative means to ensure that we see these deployed into the market as quickly as possible, some further clarity would be most useful. I beg to move.

Lord Clement-Jones: I support the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, on this amendment. This seems to be an essential part of the armoury, going forward, if we are to achieve digital switchover in the timescale that the Government propose. I am not going to repeat some of what I said earlier, in Committee and on Report, about the necessity to maintain FM as well as digital for a considerable period. The Minister has confirmed that that is the intention, even if he cannot undertake that FM will always be with us. It is essential for the foreseeable future, though, that there is a proper way of accessing FM and digital in the same receiver and with an electronic programme guide that makes it extremely easy for the consumer to do this so that little distinction is made between analogue and digital.

Lord Fowler: My Lords, I, too, strongly support what my noble friend has proposed. It is an important step in preventing truly local radio stations from becoming second-class citizens in the new era. The amendment would not completely prevent that, but it would certainly make a contribution towards it. The Government have said that something like 120 local commercial stations might benefit from the combined electronic programme guide. Will the Minister give us some indication of the size of the local stations that he has in mind? In other words, what areas does he envisage these local stations covering? Will it be something like the area covered by a commercial station in Oxford, for example, or will the area be substantially smaller than that? Some guidance would be extremely helpful. My noble friend's broad proposal would be very much to the benefit of smaller radio stations as well as the public and I support it.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords who have contributed to this short debate. The Government do not believe that a combined electronic programme guide should be a requirement of digital radio switchover or, by the way, that this directly addresses the concerns raised by local analogue radio stations. The Government are committed to supporting an integrated station guide, which provides a combined list of all available digital and FM stations. This will allow listeners to choose a station by the station name irrespective of the platform on which it is carried. It will help to provide a level playing field between digital and analogue stations.
	Such an integrated station guide has already been developed. A working prototype has been developed by engineers at Frontier Silicon and was demonstrated to manufacturers last week. It is continuing to develop the technology to ensure that the station list does not repeat stations available on both DAB and FM and is efficient and user-friendly. Once this development is complete, we will encourage manufacturers to include the technology in their future developments. We consider that the requirement raised in the amendment has already been addressed.
	I do not have a direct answer to the question that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, asked me on the numbers, but I will write to him immediately after this debate to inform him of the facts. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, will feel that we have met the broad terms of his amendment and that he can safely withdraw it.

Lord De Mauley: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Fowler and to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for their supportive words and I agree with what they say. In explaining my amendment, I acknowledged that the Government might have alternative means. Although I am not entirely sure that the Minister has given me 100 per cent satisfaction on that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment 139 withdrawn.
	Clause 35 : Local radio multiplex services: frequency and licensed area
	Amendment 140
	 Moved by Lord Davies of Oldham
	140: Clause 35, page 42, line 14, leave out "local"

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I will also speak to the other government amendments in this group, which are intended to address the concerns expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, in Committee about the extension of the licensed area of the national radio multiplex. The effect of the amendments is to allow Ofcom, at the request of the licence holder, to extend the area in which a national commercial radio multiplex is available. Notably, this would facilitate the extension of the coverage area of the existing national commercial multiplex into Northern Ireland. We recognise that the decision to extend into Northern Ireland may have an impact on the existing commercial multiplex provider, but we believe that any impact would in fact be minimal and more than outweighed by the benefit to listeners. At the same time, these government amendments will ensure that the provisions in the original drafting of Clause 35, which allow local multiplexes to vary their frequencies and reduce their licensed areas as well as to extend them, remain applicable only to local multiplexes. The Government have listened carefully to the concerns raised by the noble Baroness in our previous discussions on the Bill and we hope that our proposed amendments will address the issues that she raised. I beg to move.
	Amendment 140 agreed.
	Amendments 141 to 143
	 Moved by Lord Davies of Oldham
	141: Clause 35, page 42, line 14, at end insert-
	"( ) OFCOM may, if the requirements of subsections (2) to (4) are met, vary a national radio multiplex licence by extending the area in which the licensed service is required to be available."
	142: Clause 35, page 42, line 15, leave out "this section" and insert "subsections (2) to (5)"
	143: Clause 35, page 42, line 37, at beginning insert "In the case of a local radio multiplex licence,"
	Amendments 141 to 143 agreed.
	Amendment 143A
	 Moved by Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury
	143A: After Clause 37, insert the following new Clause-
	"Regulation of television
	In paragraph 19(2) of Schedule 24 to the Enterprise Act 2002, after paragraph (b) insert-
	"(c) may, as concerns undertakings given by one or more holders of a licence to provide a Channel 3 service, be amended or revoked by statutory instrument which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament"."

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: My Lords, I start by declaring an interest as an associate of an independent production company. The purpose of this rather technical amendment is to address an imbalance that exists in the treatment of certain merger undertakings. The issue arises because when responsibility for mergers, which was given to the Secretary of State under the old Fair Trading Act 1973, was transferred to the Competition Commission, this did not cover all cases and the Secretary of State retained the power to review some mergers. This amendment in fact concerns the continuing existence of the contract rights renewal, the price control mechanism that applies to ITV advertising sales.
	When Carlton and Granada merged in 2002 and became ITV plc, it was one of only three commercial television channels available in most homes. There were concerns then that its share of the advertising market was too powerful, so CRR was introduced to protect advertisers. CRR allows companies that advertise with ITV to retain to this day commercial deals that they made in 2002. It was designed for an analogue age and is palpably ridiculous in our digital one. Digital TV, and with it the supply of airtime for adverts, has grown with incredible speed. While competition in the commercial TV market has exploded, the media-buying market has consolidated, with 80 per cent of media advertising today controlled by four agencies. Do these super-agencies and the multinational companies that they represent really need protecting from one television channel, ITV?
	CRR is damaging the UK's creative industries. It deprives ITV of money at a time when investment in original UK television content has fallen by £340 million over five years. It has become unnecessary and should be brought to an end. As it stands, the CRR regulations are the responsibility of the Competition Commission. The best route to amending CRR is to bring its review under the responsibility of the Secretary of State. This amendment is designed to pave the way for that. It would give the Secretary of State the discretion, following secondary legislation, to bring CRR back within the scope of a regime that continues to apply to several other merger undertakings. I beg to move.

Lord Gordon of Strathblane: My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, and I hope that her lucky run from earlier in the Report stage will continue today. I moved an amendment in Committee suggesting that media mergers be moved from the Competition Commission to Ofcom as a knowledgeable specialist surveyor of the media marketplace. I withdrew my amendment at that stage and, within a week, the Competition Commission announced that, after three years of deliberation, it would not make any significant changes to CRR. Had my amendment been moved after that decision was announced, I would have been strongly pressed to push the matter to a vote and I suspect that I might have had considerable support throughout the House.
	As the noble Baroness said, this amendment does not pronounce on CRR; it simply gives the Secretary of State power to review it. It is the minimum position that we should aim for. We are in something of a mess in terms of media mergers and, frankly, the Competition Commission has not been on top of the job. It seriously worries me that a good government Bill, which among other things does quite a lot to help the commercial sector in both television and radio, will find its best efforts vitiated by the Competition Commission refusing to move on matters such as CRR. All the improvements that the Government are bringing about through the Bill could well be vitiated if that situation is maintained. I support the amendment.

Lord Fowler: My Lords, I, too, support the amendment and the words of both fellow members of the Communications Committee, although the amendment is not necessarily one of the committee's proposals. The term "contract rights renewal" seems designed to put off the understanding of any right-minded person. It is, in fact, reasonably simple. It amounts to the conditions that were adopted to deal with any adverse market effects resulting from the merger of Granada and Carlton, which formed ITV. However, that was in a different age when ITV was a major player in this area. It still is, but it is not as major as it was then. The measure was introduced to protect advertisers when ITV was one of only three commercial television channels available in most homes in the country. Self-evidently, that position has changed dramatically. The advertising market has completely changed. The number of digital households has more than doubled to 90 per cent and there has been an explosion of new digital channels.
	The only question is: do the advertisers require the kind of protection that was once given to them? Frankly, I do not think that they do. This is unnecessary regulation. I agree entirely with what the noble Lord, Lord Gordon, said-had we known the result of the competition inquiry, there would have been considerably more interest in this provision when it was first debated. This amendment gives us the opportunity to put that right. The condition placed on ITV-as everyone knows, it has been going through some pretty rough times-is entirely unnecessary in modern market conditions and it is about time that we recognised that. If the only way of recognising it is to take the power away from the Competition Commission and leave it to the Secretary of State's discretion, that seems to me a sensible way to go.

Lord Dubs: My Lords, I support the amendment and associate myself with the remarks made by the three noble Lords who have spoken to it. It may seem a technical amendment but it is very important. If we are not careful, we will have an environment where ITV will have a job to continue as a public service broadcaster. Although it has done a little better financially in the recent past, it is facing a very difficult situation with declining advertising revenues. That may be a long-term phenomenon, given how much the internet is taking away. It seems to me that this regulatory provision relates to a bygone age, albeit only seven or eight years ago. It would be sad and disastrous for British television if the main players ended up being the BBC and Sky. It would not be good for the BBC-an organisation for which I have enormous respect-or for the British public, and it would weaken television generally. Therefore, this amendment is important. If we constrain ITV from surviving with a decent level of return, its programming quality will go down and in the end we will not have a vital commercial sector, which is healthy for British television and broadcasting.
	I do not know how much discussion the Competition Commission has had on CRR. I suspect that it probably did not have sufficient. I would very much like to give ITV a chance to compete properly-not tie its hands behind its back-return to decent profitability and contribute to the creativity of British television.

Lord Puttnam: My Lords, I support the amendment despite my position as deputy chairman of Channel 4, which in some respects marginally benefited from the CRR decision. As someone who has watched developments in this very specialised sector for a great number of years, it is clear to me that the Competition Commission struggles when it tries to deal with this very fast moving and complex area. I do not expect it to put its hand up and say that it cannot cope, but it would be helpful if the Government put their hand up for it.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I add my support. Irrespective of whether the Competition Commission does not know enough about the industry or whether its mind works in a different direction, it clearly is not an appropriate body to decide this matter. It is important that we keep ITV with us as far as we possibly can. I support the amendment.

Lord De Mauley: My Lords, we, likewise, support Amendment 143A. There is now widespread acknowledgement that the contract rights renewal regime has served its purpose. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, said, internet search-engine advertising has grown dramatically and that, together with the multitude of digital channels now available, means that ITV is no longer the dominating player in advertising it once was, as my noble friend Lord Fowler said. It was interesting to note that the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport told the other place recently that he was sympathetic to calls to scrap the system. He did not, however, think that there was a mechanism by which this could be done through this Bill. Amendment 143A seems to solve his particular problem in a rather neat way. The amendment gives to Parliament the power to scrap the regime. It does not, as the noble Lord, Lord Gordon, said, necessarily mean it will be scrapped. Parliament will want to listen to all sides of the debate in some detail. Given the cross-party political will for change, which this debate has demonstrated rather aptly, it is frustrating that politicians have been powerless to do anything about it. Amendment 143A would change that so I hope the Minister will listen carefully and can offer some support from the government Benches.

Lord Davies of Oldham: Certainly the Government are listening carefully. This amendment is supported in many parts of the House and I therefore approach the issue with great seriousness. We recognise the concerns which have been expressed about ITV in its present circumstances, and the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, is right that we are in different circumstances today from a number of years ago when ITV had a rather more flourishing perspective before it. The Secretary of State has already made his concerns in this area clear elsewhere. However, we do not agree that this new clause is the correct way to address these concerns.
	The Secretary of State already has a power under the Interpretation Act to amend or repeal orders, such as the order specifying and transferring the CRR undertakings to the Competition Commission. So we do not need the amendment in substance since the Secretary of State already has that power. It was the intention of the Enterprise Act that the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission act as independent competition authorities, free from government interference. Accordingly, once undertakings were transferred to the competition authority, the Secretary of State ceased to have any power over those undertakings. The final decision of the Competition Commission is not due until April 2010 and it may, of course, still revoke the CRR undertakings. ITV may also decide to challenge the Competition Commission's decision in the High Court on judicial review grounds if it is not happy with the situation.
	The competition regime has been carefully crafted and any changes to it should be considered in depth. Here we are with this Bill at Report stage, dealing with an important dimension. I fully appreciate the concerns of all noble Lords. However, this amendment deals with only part of the problem and does not allow for the full analysis required in these circumstances. The Secretary of State has said that he has sympathy with ITV's position, but we need to be cautious of making amendments to legislation at this stage when we cannot foresee all the potential consequences.
	I am not seeking to resist the amendment in principle, in terms of the issue it addresses and the importance of it. What I am contending is that this proposed new clause will not improve the situation or solve the problem and we should be extremely wary of putting one change into legislation at this stage when we do not have a total perspective before us. As I have indicated, developments relating to independent television are imminent and will take place within a matter of the next couple of months.
	I hope the noble Baroness will accept that we have had an important debate on these issues. She is right to have raised them, and she was supported from many parts of the House with concern on the matter. I reiterate that what she expressed is also of concern to the Government. But the amendment is not the way to solve it and it would be injudicious for us to accept the amendment at this stage. I hope therefore that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw it.

Lord Fowler: On a matter of pure information, is the noble Lord saying that the Government already have powers that could be used to annul these regulations?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am saying two things. Certainly, other parts of the Bill refer to the difficulties which face independent television. It is the case that this amendment concentrates our mind on the issue, but several measures in the Bill are designed to address the issue of independent television. We are involved in complicated competition matters which are properly the responsibility of the Competition Commission, but I have indicated that the Government have power under the Interpretation Act to step in if, in fact, the situation was serious enough to merit action. Clearly, we hope that things do not reach that unfortunate pass and we appreciate the widespread concern in the House about the position of independent television. We all recognise that the issue needs to be safeguarded, although I cannot go as far as my noble friend Lord Dubs who, in slightly more maudlin comments, suggested that independent television might disappear altogether. It is very clear that we regard independent television as having both a future and an important role to play.
	While the House will recognise that other parts of the Bill help to reinforce the position of independent television, this amendment would produce a partial and limited approach which superficially looks attractive because there is a genuine problem that needs to be addressed. However, the amendment might have all sorts of attendant difficulties for the relationship of the Secretary of State regarding competition matters, which are the responsibility of the Competition Commission. What I am assuring the House is that the Secretary of State certainly has the power in extremis to take necessary action.

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: I thank the Minister for his reply. He mentioned the word "cautious". He is being much too cautious. I stress that the amendment is designed only to make it possible for a Secretary of State to take responsibility for a review of CRR. It does not compel him or her. Nothing would need to happen after the Bill is passed unless a future Secretary of State wanted to do it and could get a further piece of secondary legislation through Parliament to make it happen.
	The Minister mentioned that the Competition Commission still has not completed its deliberations. However, its latest decision, which noble Lords around the House have mentioned, is based on the same misconception set out in its previous decision last September. The commission considered that,
	"the competitive environment is still very similar to that identified in the CC's 2003 report".
	That is blatantly nonsense. It spent three years on its latest review and, judging by those pronouncements, nothing fundamental will change. Once the final statement is made, that will be it for the foreseeable future.
	I thank all noble Lords who have supported this amendment, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam. As vice-chair of Channel 4, he is in an interesting position in supporting this amendment. I urge the Minister to ponder my words, and I hope the Government might reconsider their position. For the moment-

Lord Davies of Oldham: Before the noble Baroness sits down, I sought to indicate in my reply that we took this issue very seriously indeed; we know it is serious and needs to be addressed. I also indicated that we have considerable difficulties because of certain imminent decisions. Given the range of opinions and strength of feeling across the House, I have indicated that the Government will of course look at this very seriously, and I give the noble Baroness that assurance.

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: I thank the Minister again and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment 143A withdrawn.
	Clause 38 : Payment for licences
	Amendment 144
	 Moved by Lord Clement-Jones
	144: Clause 38, leave out Clause 38

Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, In Committee we had a very useful debate on Clause 38 stand part which ranged widely across the whole issue of spectrum auction and allocation. My intention today with this amendment is not to range so broadly but to home in much more carefully on a particular aspect, namely the spectrum used by the programme-making and special events sector for radio microphones. Through its Save our Sound campaign, the sector has made it very clear that it has not been happy with the way in which the Government did not make their intentions clear regarding compensation for the loss of spectrum used by that sector and those radio microphones.
	The Minister wrote me a very helpful letter on 24 February. He set out quite a number of the issues regarding the moving of the sector from the 800 megahertz band, and, specifically for PMSE users, from Channel 69. Subsequently, the sector has had meetings with Stephen Timms, the Minister for Digital Britain. I do not know whether the Minister in this House has had meetings, but clearly they have been very helpful. However, at the moment, and certainly in the Minister's letter, the principles of the compensation scheme are set out in very broad terms:
	"Any package has to be consistent with the principles of leaving users no worse off than if the change had not taken place and also has to be consistent with State Aid principles and within Ofcom's statutory powers. As you can appreciate, this is a difficult judgement. The Government will give this matter careful consideration when we have the relevant information from Ofcom".
	On these Benches, we look very carefully at ministerial letters, and we take comfort from them when they contain a certain level of detail. This letter is very general, and at the moment it does not give a great deal of comfort to the PMSE sector. I hope that today the Government will be able to give a much better idea of where advance notice applies and no compensation is payable; where no notice was able to be given and where compensation does apply; and, in particular, the kinds of compensations which will be available.
	I understand that Ofcom is re-evaluating the situation-I welcome that, and the fact that the Minister was pleased to have a meeting with the PMSE sector. But what are the timescales involved in the Government making this decision? When will Ofcom have finished its re-evaluation? On the face of it, this was a very useful first step by the Minister, but a number of issues flow from it and many questions remain to be answered before it will be clear that this sector is being treated fairly. I beg to move.

Lord De Mauley: My Lords, in our previous debate on this clause, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, optimistically stated that we would have to wait until Report for further enlightenment on the Government's spectrum policy. I am not sure what he was expecting, but while we have been waiting there has been a relevant development. The European Commission has recently cleared the proposed merger between T-Mobile and Orange. As part of this clearance, undertakings have been given involving the release of 1,800 megahertz of spectrum. I would be interested to know whether the undertakings satisfy the Minister, and whether the Government believe that competition in the mobile broadband market will now be secured.

Lord Young of Norwood Green: My Lords, in Committee I set out why Clause 38 is an important element of the Government's plans to implement their wireless spectrum modernisation programme. Without the clause, there would be a delay in the introduction of next-generation mobile services that would benefit our citizens and the economy as a whole. However, I am aware of the noble Lord's concerns about what will happen to the programme-making and special events industry in this country as a result of plans to clear the 800 megahertz band. I have written to the noble Lord on this matter, as he acknowledged, but it may help if I put on record the key points.
	The Government recognise these concerns. They also recognise the contribution that the PMSE sector makes to the social, cultural and economic well-being of the UK. However, it is important to recognise that PMSE users have been given several years' notice that they will be required to vacate certain channels, known as the interleaved spectrum, that until now have been available to them. In the case of these channels, the proposal is that no compensation will be paid, as sufficient notice has been given. However, PMSE users will have access to other interleaved spectrum channels, details of which should be available later this year.
	There is a different position for licensed users being moved from Channel 69-this was the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones-which is the dedicated channel for PMSE, where most radio microphones operate. These users are being offered compensation, as they had a legitimate expectation that they could use that dedication-sorry, I meant to say that dedicated channel, although they might show dedication as well-until at least 2018.
	Ofcom has consulted on this twice, with the most recent consultation closing in September last year. It has evaluated the responses and is carrying out further analysis to ensure that, along with the Government, it has the most robust information available on which to make a final decision. This is a difficult decision, as it must be made within the powers that have been laid out for Ofcom by Parliament, and must also be compatible with European state aid rules. We intend to make it as soon as possible.
	I am looking to see if I can help the noble Lord with any more detail. Ofcom has been tasked to produce this information and we hope to have a decision and an announcement of the package and terms in weeks rather than months. That undertaking, although not completely precise, is a little bit firmer. I personally share the noble Lord's concern, as do the Government.
	The issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, is complex. I am afraid that I am not briefed on it, so I will write to him with a detailed response. I hope that, in the light of these assurances and the extra information I have provided, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, will feel able to withdraw the amendment. He has my assurance that as soon as we can provide the additional information, we will do so.

Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Obviously I am pleased that there is a slightly firmer hand on the tiller when it comes to Ofcom making its determination. What worries me is that when the Bill has gone through, everybody will go to sleep again and the PMSE sector will be left waiting for a decision. However, I take the Minister's assurance that Ofcom has been tasked to produce the material in weeks rather than months. That is a significant statement about Channel 69 compensation.
	I turn to what the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, said. I agree that his question was legitimate in the light of the decision that has been made by the Commission. I find it extraordinary that the Government do not have an answer to hand about the implications for the auction and spectrum allocation of the merger of the two mobile broadband operations. Going from five to four will fundamentally change the competitive situation. I hope that, by the next stage of the Bill, there will be a statement on that, even though it was not me but the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, who asked the question, and on Report he cannot jump up and down and ask, "If not, why not?".
	I thank the Minister. I will consult with the PMSE sector about his response. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment 144 withdrawn.
	Clause 40 : Classification of video games etc
	Amendment 145
	 Moved by Lord Davies of Oldham
	145: Clause 40, page 46, line 22, at end insert-
	"(3A) After subsection (3) insert-
	"(4) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend this section-
	(a) by adding or removing a case in which a video work is not an exempted work, or
	(b) by amending a description of such a case.""

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 151 and 190A. I reiterate that the Government's predominant concern in introducing a video classification system is to protect children from inappropriate video content. We fully accept that, if exempted videos contain certain material, they should be subject to statutory age classification requirements and regulation. Any video content depicting scenes of gross violence, mutilation or human sexual activity currently falls within the scope of the Bill even if that content is contained within a video which is predominantly about music or sport.
	By giving the Secretary of State a power to amend the non-exempt criteria, we will ensure that the wording of the Bill properly reflects the type of content available and achieves the most effective level of regulation on the ground. Furthermore, we are committed to carrying through consultation on the issue by autumn of this year.
	We consider that the amendment will answer the concerns which were expressed strongly in debate and previous stages of the Bill. I emphasise that this view is supported by the British Board of Film Classification, the Video Standards Council and the British Video Association. I beg to move.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I welcome this amendment, which marks an acceptance by Government that there is a problem in relation to harmful material in music, sport and documentary video works being supplied to children without restriction. I also welcome the Minister's commitment to consult on exemptions. There is clearly a need to close the loophole which allows harmful material to avoid regulation; and this view was supported by colleagues around the House on previous occasions.
	The recent debate on Andrew Dismore's Video Recordings (Exemption from Classification) Bill demonstrated that this concern is shared by colleagues in another place. It is also supported by the Home Office review, published last week, on the sexualisation of young people. Recommendation 26 of the report proposes that the current gap,
	"in the regulatory protection provided by the Video Recordings Act 1984 be closed ... by removing the general exemption for 'works concerned with ... music'".
	Given the widespread concern about the issue from the industry, law enforcement, the regulator and the Home Office, and in both Houses, it is good to know that the Minister has confirmed that a consultation is going to take place in the autumn, and that the intention is to take action to close the loophole rather than what was on the agenda before, which was whether to close it.
	On a related child protection issue, I welcome the commitment by the Government to hold urgent discussions to look at how to prevent children freely accessing hardcore pornography from UK video-on-demand services. I have written to the noble Lord, Lord Young, asking him to ensure that these discussions also involve ATVOD, as the delegated authority for video-on-demand regulation, and the BBFC, as experts on pornographic and other extreme content. I am pleased to say that he has agreed with this suggestion.
	I also asked that the Minister give noble Lords a clear indication of when those discussions and consequent actions are likely to be completed. Again, I would be grateful for any comments that he can make. The noble Lord, Lord Young, also referred me to the Home Office's review on the sexualisation of young people, which also deals with the issue. Most noble Lords will have seen the considerable coverage given to the recommendations of the author, Dr Linda Papadopoulos. In Recommendation 27, she asks that regulation of UK-based video on demand services is strengthened,
	"to ensure that they do not allow children to access hardcore pornography".
	Will the Minister confirm that the Government will act swiftly, working with Ofcom, ATVOD and the BBFC to ensure that that recommendation is implemented in the most appropriate way?

Lord De Mauley: My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, I thank the Minister for this group of amendments and for working with the relevant group of stakeholders and us to address our concerns. I would have preferred as a general principle to have seen the loophole closed in primary legislation, but I understand the need for proper pre-legislative consultation on the matter. As it is, I hope that the matter will be resolved quickly and to everyone's satisfaction.

Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, in welcoming this amendment and in supporting the remarks of my noble friend Lady Howe, I remind the Minister that in 1993, in the immediate aftermath of the killing of James Bulger in Liverpool, I produced an amendment in another place introducing restrictions on the sale of video violence, which included gratuitously violent material. My reason for doing that was that the trial judge made it clear at the time that one of the two boys involved in the killing had been exposed not only to pornography but to necrophilia and gratuitously violent material.
	It has always struck me as bizarre that we suggest that what we see has little effect on us. When we consider that the advertising industry spends about £4 billion trying to sell us its wares on television, it is common sense to accept that exposure to what we see has a profound influence on us. When we consider the violence in society today, there is no doubt that the desensitisation of children and young people is a major factor, and that it has been promoted as a result of the violent culture that we have created in the United Kingdom.
	I therefore hope that the Minister will ensure that the consultative process takes place rapidly, that if legislation is necessary it will be brought before your Lordships' House in good time, and that we will consider other ways, such as the introduction of the so-called V-chip, which can be placed in televisions, allowing parents to sift out violent material from their homes and giving them far greater control over the content to which their children may be exposed. I fully accept that some children most likely to be affected will not be in homes where parents take such steps, but at least it would be a move in the right direction.

Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, I, too, congratulate the Minister on having introduced Amendment 145, in particular. At the same time, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, on her efforts, which have stimulated the Government to produce the amendment. It is important. Like the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, I regret that it is being done by secondary legislation, rather than directly by primary legislation, as in the original amendment that we discussed in Committee. This is probably three-quarters of a loaf, even if it is not the full loaf.

Lord Davies of Oldham: Well, my Lords, it may not be the full loaf, but it is the real thing in terms of the Government's determination to act in this respect. I want to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, who stresses the urgency of the issue. I fully understand that point. I did not say that we would be consulting in the autumn; I said that we sought to carry out a thorough consultation on the issue by the autumn. My timetable is a little earlier. We will be consulting throughout the summer and up to the autumn on this important matter.
	Of course, we do need to consult because this is not a straightforward issue. I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the House is well aware of his views on these matters. I have to say that at times he presents as known facts that which other reputable authorities would regard as somewhat contentious. I am not sure that violence among young people in this country is down to television, films and broadcasting. It seems to me that it is likely that, in historical terms, there was a considerable amount of violence among young people in society well in advance of anything being depicted on our screens, either large or small, and therefore we should not draw too ready an issue of cause and effect.
	That does not alter the fact, however, that the Government are clearly under an obligation where parents express concern about material which might be available to young children against which they would be protected in other circumstances. This would certainly be the case so far as films are concerned if these are inserted into video games or into video programmes which might purport to have totally different content but which nevertheless have something which parents would want to restrict their children from seeing and which we would all recognise might be harmful to children. It is then necessary that action is taken.
	I am therefore moving these amendments as a constructive response to the case that has been made. I am not sure that we had the benefit of the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, last time but, as he says, he has a very long history on these matters and we pay respect to his constant concern about these issues. I reassure him and the House that this issue was sufficiently debated in Committee for the Government to have brought forward these amendments in good faith to tackle the issue as soon as we can.
	Amendment 145 agreed.
	Clause 41 : Designated authority for video games etc
	Amendment 146
	 Moved by Baroness Howe of Idlicote
	146: Clause 41, page 48, line 34, at end insert "or the video works authority for those video games allocated to it under subsection (1)"

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: Amendment 146 is in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I am pleased that since Committee stage the Government have sent out a fact-sheet which is effectively guidance to the effect that the BBFC will be allocated ancillary games on product which is primarily film and R18 games. A number of us had called for this allocation to be in the Bill, but it is still welcome to have this confirmation from the Minister about how matters will be taken forward. This allocation is a sensible and practical decision, given the home entertainment industry a desire for a one-stop shop for Blu-ray discs and the need to have special arrangements in place for the kind of problematic material that can be found in R18 games.
	I also welcome the definition of a video game set down in this guidance as,
	"a game that people play via a console or a PC".
	It is important to have clarity so that the responsibilities of the two designated authorities are properly understood. I welcome the fact that the Minister anticipates that, if products come on the market that are essentially film-type material but are marketed as games, these would be allocated to the BBFC. It would be helpful to have further confirmation of this approach from the Minister when he replies.
	The fact-sheet that was sent to me by the noble Lord, Lord Young, however, does not deal with how it is decided whether works fall within an allocated category, which is why I have tabled this amendment. I hope that the Government will look at this matter again. Given the difficulties associated with R18 material, it makes sense for the BBFC to determine whether a video game falls within that category, since it is the expert in this field. Without this amendment, we risk the video games authority wrongly determining that a work does not pass the R18 threshold and therefore does not need to go to the BBFC. This has ramifications in terms of ease of access, since the work would no longer need to be sold in a sex shop. It would also mean that there would be no specialised scrutiny of the content.
	Will the Minister indicate how he expects these matters to be resolved? Will there be guidance from the Secretary of State if the BBFC is convinced that a work that has just been classified 18 by the video games authority should have been classified R18? The amendment is a logical consequence of the Government's correct decision to allocate difficult works to the BBFC because of its expertise.
	Amendment 147, in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is crucial to the successful application of the new regulatory regime for video games. It is vital that this new regime is introduced effectively and in a manner that does not damage the tried and tested regime for linear material. Under the Bill, the video games authority would have only to "have regard to" any determination by the BBFC for linear material in the game, even where it is for a film within a game that has already been classified by the BBFC. That, surely, cannot be right. It can lead only to consumer confusion and to major problems for the enforcement authorities.
	The amendment has the full support of LACORS, which, as we know, represents local authority enforcement officers. The fact-sheet which the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, kindly sent me does not really resolve this issue, but it helpfully promises:
	"The VSC must consult the BBFC about the appropriateness of the arrangements that it makes for getting the BBFC determinations about the linear video content. As added reassurance, the Secretary of State will issue guidance on how this system will work if clarification is required due to the new way of working under this revised scheme".
	This clarification is helpful along the path, and I would be grateful if the Minister could indicate when we might expect this guidance. However, my preferred route is still through primary legislation.
	My amendment would mean that we are not dependent on guidance from the Secretary of State at some future juncture. This is an important issue, because it goes to the very heart of the BBFC's role as the regulator for linear content in this country. It has undertaken this role for nearly 100 years and has won the support-perhaps hardly surprisingly as it has existed all that time-of the British public and parties from all sides of this House. I appreciate that it is not the Government's intention to undermine this role, but I fear that the Bill will have that effect if it is not amended.
	This amendment would make it very clear that the video games authority would have to implement the BBFC's determination for non-integral linear material. My understanding was that the Government always intended to leave the BBFC with this responsibility, and my amendment would ensure that that remained the case and that another regulator with no experience in linear material-to be fair, it does not claim to have any experience-could not, under the terms of the Bill, overrule the BBFC's classification. Will the Minister assure the House that it will not have that ability under the Bill?
	Again, LACORS supports this amendment because it needs there to be clear responsibility for classification decisions in order to enforce the Video Recordings Act. Again, the fear is that, given that the video games authority appears to have sole responsibility for classification, even of linear material, it will be very difficult in a court of law to have proper assistance when providing evidence. I am sure that this is not the Government's intention, and I hope that the Minister will reconsider the matter and accept this amendment. I beg to move.

Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, I signed my name to the amendment so cogently put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and I think her extremely cogent speech demonstrates that sometimes ministerial letters can raise more questions than they answer. There are certainly a number of questions in the speech of the noble Baroness today.
	I am a very strong supporter of the new PEGI system for video games; this amendment is certainly not supported from these benches on the basis that it is going to cause any problems for the VSC. It is entirely motivated by the need to have a proper demarcation between the two in cases where linear content is contained within video games. This is a very important potential loophole, which Ministers have addressed in other ways. The whole purpose of these amendments is to deal with the issue of demarcation between the BBFC and the VSC. As the noble Baroness said, this amendment to the primary legislation would mean that the Secretary of State would not need to issue guidance on how this system will work. There would be a ready-made method of demarcation, and we believe that would be greatly preferable and much clearer right from the outset of the operation of this Bill.

Lord De Mauley: My Lords, our Amendment 148 in this group addresses much the same point as those of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. They all seek to clarify the division of responsibility over video work, and raise a concern that the BBFC classification will not be the one by which the product is marketed. Amendment 148 raises an issue highlighted by the BBFC as to how the usual procedure for gathering evidence for a prosecution would operate. As it stands, if the BBFC classification were the one under which a video work was marketed, it would be a straightforward matter for the enforcement body to go to the BBFC to check the material against its records. Will the Minister explain how the video games authority will be able to provide adequate certificates of evidence?

Lord Maxton: My Lords, I rise to speak briefly. I am slightly confused both by the last debate and by this one. This provision, of course, applies only to video games that either are bought on a disc or are on television. It cannot, as far as I am aware, apply to the downloading of any video games through the internet which are sourced from outside this country, and many of them will be. I am not quite sure how any of this applies to that, and I would be grateful if the Minister would give me some answers in his reply.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have participated in this important debate, and particularly to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for moving Amendment 146. I emphasise that our overriding policy intention is to ensure that video games be classified by the authority designated for that purpose.
	As we discussed extensively in Committee, it is vital that some flexibility is set out in the Bill to enable certain kinds of games to be allocated across to the BBFC for classification. This flexibility is achieved by the new Section 4ZB. The section makes clear that the Video Standards Council can determine conclusively which authority is responsible for classifying a certain class of video games. We believe this is the correct approach, as it is the video games authority which will be ultimately responsible for setting up arrangements to classify video games. The VSC will allocate across any games to the BBFC, but it can do so only after consultation with that body. Also, before withdrawing any allocation, it must consult the BBFC. In addition, the VSC will have to take into account any guidance the Secretary of State issues. So it is clear where the responsibility lies, and it is also clear that the obligation is on the VSC.
	Under new Section 4ZC we have defined how the video games authority will deal with non-integral film material contained within a game. It is now a legal requirement for the video games authority to have regard to any BBFC determination or BBFC classification made about such film content within games, so the Government would contend that Amendment 147 is already provided for in the Bill. It is quite clear that the video games authority has no flexibility in those terms, but must refer the matter to the BBFC.
	In setting up arrangements to take account of BBFC determinations and classifications, the VSC would be under a duty to consult the BBFC and to comply with any guidance that the Secretary of State issues. The question of guidance has been raised in the debate, and I reassure the House that the Secretary of State will offer guidance to make absolutely sure that the spirit and intent of the Act are reflected in its implementation. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, was particularly concerned about that point. We trust the two designated authorities to decide when referral is appropriate, and to share any information that is required to make sure that the process of classification is implemented properly. We have been reassured by both bodies that they will do that. Further, our detailed discussions have satisfied us that they will work together to interpret and apply the legislation correctly.
	The Government contend that the Bill already sets up the structure to meet the anxieties that have been raised, but one or two points were raised with particular force and precision, and I want to reply to those. On the question put by the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, about evidence being made available for prosecutions, we understand of course the need to support the prosecuting authorities, and the Bill as currently drafted enables the BBFC to provide material evidence to the court on which it has made a determination.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, stressed once again the urgency of this matter. That is why we want the Bill to pass through both Houses of Parliament with not only the proper degree of scrutiny, but with the proper degree of urgency as well. I emphasise that the guidance from the Secretary of State will be published before the video games authority is designated under the Act. This will take place within months of Royal Assent, and I am sure that the whole House will join with me in hoping that that Royal Assent is not unduly delayed.
	The noble Baroness also asked how a game would be identified as one to be restricted to the 18-plus category so that it is allocated across to the BBFC. The VSC and the BBFC are in discussions with each other and will identify the criteria that make a game likely to be restricted to 18 plus. The game will be allocated across if it is likely to be designed as R18 because that is the proper responsibility of the BBFC.
	There are always differing views in the House on these matters, but I speak against a background where the work of the BBFC enjoys the confidence of the nation generally. Where serious material in video games merits its attention, the BBFC will be brought in because it will be an obligation on the Video Standards Council to bring it in. That is the basis of the Government's contention that the Bill already meets these anxieties. The amendments are important in clarifying the debate, but I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment, and that the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, will not move his, on the grounds that the Government have given careful thought to these matters and the Bill provides answers to the issues they have raised.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and the detailed way in which he has dealt with the advice that has been given to all parties affected by the amendments. As I said, although the preferred route is still through primary legislation, the assurances he has given and the clear way in which he has set out how he expects the bodies concerned to work together in coming to a conclusion on which role each should play-not least when matters come before a court of law-will be very helpful indeed. Once we get to the Royal Assent stage, the guidance could be only a matter of months away, which will be a huge help. The sooner this is clear and available for those concerned to act upon the better. I-

Lord Davies of Oldham: Before the noble Baroness withdraws her amendment, I omitted to respond to a point raised by my noble friend Lord Maxton. I emphasise-the noble Baroness will be fully aware of this-that we are talking about boxed video games here. That is the subject of the provision.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: I am grateful for the support of the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord De Mauley, and everyone else who has spoken on the issue. I again thank the Minister for his help, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment 146 withdrawn.
	Amendments 147 and 148 not moved.
	Amendment 149
	 Moved by Baroness Howe of Idlicote
	149: After Clause 41, insert the following new Clause-
	"Duty to promote online safety
	(1) It shall be the duty of internet service providers and mobile phone operators to take such steps, and to enter into such arrangements-
	(a) to bring about, or to encourage others to bring about, a better public understanding of online safety;
	(b) to provide prominent, easily accessible and clear information on filtering options of public electronic communication services for the purposes of online safety-
	(i) at the time of purchase of the service; and
	(ii) to make such information available for the duration of the contract.
	(2) In this section "online safety" means safe, responsible use of the internet and other communication devices by children and young people."

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I apologise for being on my feet yet again. Amendment 149 requires internet service providers and mobile phone operators to promote online safety and to provide consumers with information on filtering options prominently at the point of purchase and throughout the duration of the contract. It does not prescribe how they should go about doing so; neither does it require them to produce filtering software of their own. It simply requires that ISPs and MPOs make buyers aware of filtering options, thereby promoting child safety online, just as toy makers, traffic light wardens and shopkeepers already do offline.
	In Committee the Minister suggested that the amendment was unnecessary because the task that it seeks to address is already taken care of by the UK Council for Child Internet Safety. Having studied the Minister's speech and the excellent work of the UKCCIS carefully, I am, however, even more convinced of the need for my amendment. As the Minister knows, that body is a coalition of concerned bodies that seek to promote child safety on the basis of voluntary self-regulation and observation of best practice. On this basis, there are some important things that it can do and some very important things that it cannot.
	One of the things that it can do, and is doing, is to promote the idea of the BSI filtering kitemark so that people considering filtering options will be able to identify safe and reliable filtering technologies. This is very welcome, but while the kitemark is a good mechanism to ensure the quality of filtering products, it does not and cannot ensure parental knowledge of filtering software per se. While the UKCCIS does good educational campaigns, such as "Zip it, Lock it, Flag it", these initiatives are not permanent, as my filtering amendment would be. Campaigns, as we all know, come and go.
	That there is a pressing need for the filtering amendment is eloquently demonstrated by UKCCIS itself in its annual report, which shows that only,
	"15 per cent of parents whose child's phone can be used to access the internet say parental controls are enabled".
	That comes from Ofcom, March/April 2009. This suggests a real lack of awareness of filtering options and what they can do and the challenges surrounding this are becoming more pressing with newer handsets that allow unfettered access to the internet. Interestingly, a Home Office report entitled The Sexualisation of Young People, already referred to during today's debate-the author being the prominent, well-known psychologist, Linda Papadopoulos-recommends that game consoles and mobile phones should be sold with parental filtering mechanisms turned on.
	In summary, this amendment is needed for three reasons. First, while some ISPs and MPOs already provide information on filtering, there are still companies that do not. They should. This is something that the UKCCIS cannot make them do and the voluntary basis of education is too slow. It took the industry far longer than was appropriate, and many more years than the Government wanted it to take, for companies to sign up to standards relating to child pornography.
	Secondly, while many companies provide information on filtering, not all do it in a prominent way at the point of sale and-I emphasise-throughout the duration of the contract. Again, UKCCIS cannot oblige companies to do this. Finally, there is evidence that more work needs to be done to educate parents, as the UKCCIS safety strategy suggests. I do not believe that it is fair to place the high burden of expectation that the Minister has thrust upon the UKCCIS, which, for reasons I have set out, it cannot possibly deliver by itself. The combined effect of Amendment 149 and the work of that body, however, would put in place a credible framework and I believe, frankly, that our children deserve nothing less. I beg to move.

Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, I support the amendment standing in the name of my noble friend and I commend to the House the very measured way in which she has moved it today. Amendment 149 has a light touch and a very sensible approach. It does not just rely on the voluntarism that is implicit in the Minister's remarks in Committee, remarks which I have carefully read. I was sorry not to be able to be present to hear them at the time.
	I do not believe that the only factor that shapes a young person is exposure to gratuitous violence, as the Minister implied earlier on, any more than I think that exposure to information on the internet is necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, the internet can be the most extraordinary tool for good and it can be used in an education setting in the most wonderful ways. Parents want to have some control over what their children see, though, and we should encourage them to want to have some say over what their children are exposed to.
	That is why we need a more robust approach towards child protection, and merely relying on the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, wonderful though that body is and good work though it undoubtedly does, is not sufficient. The difficulty with depending on a body that in turn is forced to depend on a voluntary approach is eloquently illustrated by examination of one of the council's current initiatives: the proposal of a BSI kite mark for filtering software, to which my noble friend referred.
	I shall mention two things in that regard. First, while a kite mark is helpful, if parents are already aware of filtering options, there is a more urgent need to make them aware of filtering options at the point of sale and for the duration of the contract, hence the importance of this amendment. Secondly, an e-mail from the council that I have seen states:
	"This is still very much work in progress".
	This reminds me of the problem relating to the timetable for voluntary agreements on signing up to the Internet Watch Foundation's list of blocked websites. The comparison pertains directly to time proofing; it shows why legislation is needed and how it can complement the council's work. Voluntary arrangements by themselves are simply not enough.
	In 2004 British Telecom started using technology to block illegal child abuse images at ISP level. These measures stop customers accessing these images, deliberately or by accident. Early in 2006 the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Home Office, Vernon Coaker, said that the Government wanted all ISPs to use similar technology to block content found on the Internet Watch Foundation's list of child abuse websites. Mr Coaker said that 90 per cent of ISPs had either already implemented or pledged to implement the blocks by the end of 2006. It beggars belief that there are companies that still do not block this content. To put things into perspective, Twitter has been around since 2006, YouTube since 2005 and Facebook since 2004. The internet moves very quickly and the Government need to move along with it at the same speed.
	Given that a UK council survey has shown that only 15 per cent of parents have provided filtering for their children's phones, it is clear that making parents aware of filtering options is an urgent priority. We should not wait for ineffective and slow voluntary arrangements to work when more effective and simple legal alternatives such as my noble friend's amendment are on the table-that is, unless we are prepared to give the impression that child protection issues are of only minor importance. I strongly support the amendment.

The Earl of Erroll: My Lords, Clauses 4 to 9 of the Bill are about sending a message, as is the amendment. At the moment Tony Neate struggles on with Get Safe Online, the government-promoted website for this information. However, it is badly underfunded, and this would be a way of spreading the load among many other people. Therefore it can only be recommended.

Lord Young of Norwood Green: My Lords, as I said when the amendment was discussed in Committee, the Government recognise and agree with the objective that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, seeks to achieve. In that debate I outlined the very important work that the UK Council for Child Internet Safety is doing in leading the Government's work in this area and in bringing together-I stress this-a wide range of interested parties, including the internet service providers and mobile phone operators at whom this amendment is aimed.
	I emphasise the sustainability of the council's work. For example, it has already brought about changes in the school curriculum that will continue into the future. It is also running a public awareness campaign, with the message to "Click Clever, Click Safe" to raise awareness among children and their carers of how to stay safe online. That message is being promoted by all council members. The council's work with industry, and the previous work of the Home Secretary's task force, shows the ongoing commitment of these companies to doing what this amendment calls for: promoting the safe use of the internet by children. I am glad to say that the companies involved include those that run some of the most popular sites on the internet. Their commitment to this cause is also shown by the success of the Internet Watch Foundation. That body has been running since 1996 and currently has 100 companies as members and supporters. It is recognised-and we should acknowledge this-as a world leader in the fight against criminal content online, particularly images of the sexual abuse of children. It is a self-regulatory body, independent of government, although we totally support its work. The longevity and success of this body are testament to how seriously issues of online safety are taken by the industry.
	A couple of points have been raised by noble Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, talked about parents not being aware of filtering software. Actually, in our view and on our information, many parents are aware of such software but-and I simply state this-some say that they do not want to use it. They want more information about all aspects of safety, and this is what the UKCCIS is doing. Both the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, talked about not all ISPs telling parents about parental controls. I know that all major ISPs are in the UKCCIS and so are committed to promoting online safety. This covers the vast majority of the UK population, so including most children.
	Due to this ongoing and widely supported work, we do not believe that the amendment is needed. However, I hope the House will rest assured that the Government agree with its spirit. As well as supporting the work of the Internet Watch Foundation, I urge noble Lords to follow the work of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, where we will be working with our partners to set up a framework of support, education and protection, which will not only help today's children, but will continue that help into the future as circumstances and technologies change.
	I have a final couple of points. First, on the question of compulsion rather than voluntarism, the internet develops quickly, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said. A voluntary arrangement can take account of new services and not just put a burden on ISPs. Finally, this amendment seeks to impose specific obligations on a limited section of the wide variety of companies involved in the internet. This would require the Government to conduct a full consultation to see whether such a burden is proportionate. We simply do not have the time to undertake such a consultation and, given the work that is already going on in this area, it is unlikely that the additional benefit to be gained would outweigh the cost to industry of complying and to the public purse of monitoring and enforcing any new rules.
	We share the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, but we believe that the current arrangements have made significant strides within the industry and are creating the right sort of climate to promote both awareness and responsibility on the part of ISPs and mobile phone providers. In the light of those comments and of assurances previously given, I would hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I thank the Minister for what he has said and, indeed, I should particularly like to thank my noble friends Lord Alton and Lord Erroll for their contributions in support of the amendment. I certainly do not have the slightest wish to disparage the excellent voluntary work done both by the UK Council for Child Internet Safety or by the Internet Watch Foundation, for which I have great respect.
	However, as I said in moving the amendment, there are still some very important things that cannot be done on a voluntary basis. I know that many noble Lords will retain their sense of unease that the Government are not prepared to give more attention to how this amendment could be adopted and put in place. I hope the Minister will not regret that at some future stage. I am particularly surprised, in the light of the report by Dr Linda Papadopoulos, that they are not perhaps giving rather more detailed consideration to the implications that could certainly have been drawn from her report. However, under the circumstances and for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
	Amendment 149 withdrawn.
	Schedule 1 : Classification of video games etc: supplementary provision
	Amendment 150
	 Moved by Lord De Mauley
	150: Schedule 1, page 58, line 25, after "(3)" insert "and insert-
	"(2) Regulations under this section may require content advice issued with the classification certificate by the designated authority to be shown in a manner so specified.""

Lord De Mauley: My Lords, we have tabled Amendment 150 simply to seek clarification of a response that the Minister gave in Committee. His argument against consumer advice being required on every video work appeared to rest on the burden that such a requirement would place on the industry. While I yield to no man in my determination to minimise unnecessary burdens on business, I cannot see what burden would be created here. As it stands, the video cover must already leave a certain amount of space available for the clear presentation of the classification. This space is sufficient for consumer advice, so no further space would be required to be sacrificed from the design of the cover. Since it is the BBFC that drafts consumer advice, there is no further burden on the production company to draft the wording either. It could be argued that making consumer advice automatic would reduce the administration burden on a production company, so I ask the Minister for a rather better reason as to why he does not agree that consumer advice should be present on all video works. I beg to move.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I support the amendment. Its purpose is to empower consumers by enabling them to make informed choices about a film or video game through the provision of content advice, whether in the form of English-language text in the case of the BBFC or pictograms in the case of PEGI. PEGI's rules attempt to make it compulsory for video game packaging to carry PEGI content advice. Without the amendment, content advice on packaging would not have a statutory back-up. The amendment would bring UK law and PEGI rules together and ensure that bespoke BBFC consumer advice-80 per cent of viewers overall and 85 per cent of parents of primary school-age children find it helpful, according to research carried out in 2009-is available on packaging. I hope that the Minister will give serious consideration to the amendment, which would improve consumer empowerment and child protection.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their contributions to the debate. We emphasise that the Video Recordings Act already offers significant protection for children. It puts in place a system that makes it a criminal offence to sell or supply video works to children or young people if they contain content that is inappropriate for them. This system has worked well for 25 years. Parents and consumers can see clearly from the product what they are buying and whether the content is suitable for viewing by particular age groups.
	In addition to this important layer of statutory protection, there is a wealth of voluntary information available to parents and consumers if they want more detail on the storyline or underlying content. At the moment, the vast majority of DVDs and games rated by the British Board of Film Classification display not only the compulsory labelling that is required, such as the age ratings, but a few words of consumer advice that have been jointly agreed between the content publisher and the BBFC. The BBFC website also contains extended consumer advice, which parents can view to find out more about a particular film or television programme. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for having introduced the point that the Pan-European Games Information also offers consumer advice in the form of pictograms that indicate whether the video game contains scenes that feature, for example, drug use, violence or bad language.
	We do not think that there is compelling evidence to demonstrate that consumer advice offers a greater level of public protection or that this extra level of consumer advice needs to be made compulsory, which is the burden of the amendment. We have existing statutory protection and good practice that guarantee that the amendment is not necessary. We are keen to ensure that we do not create unnecessary legislation. The noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, made a nod in that direction but, as we have the necessary protection in place, why do we need an additional amendment to the Bill?
	The Secretary of State will issue guidance to the industry and the designated authorities to indicate that consumer advice should be available as a best practice standard. This standard is already widely adopted and delivered on the ground by a responsible and responsive industry in collaboration with the British Board of Film Classification and the Video Standards Council. The British Video Association has confirmed to the Government that it will continue to encourage its members to comply with best practice and has emphasised that there is already a very high compliance rate under the voluntary scheme.
	I recognise the good intentions of the noble Lord's amendment and I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for her comments on the matter. However, we think that we have in place good practice, with the necessary legislative framework to back it up, and that therefore the amendment is not necessary. I hope that the noble Lord will feel that I have given him sufficient reassurance to enable him to withdraw the amendment.

Lord De Mauley: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for her support and for the points that she made in support of mine. I thank the Minister for his helpful response, which I will consider carefully, even if he does not go quite so far as I would like. However, for today, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment 150 withdrawn.
	Amendment 151
	 Moved by Lord Davies of Oldham
	151: Schedule 1, page 60, line 13, after "section" insert "2,"
	Amendment 151 agreed.
	Clause 42 : Extension and regulation of licensing of copyright and performers' rights
	Amendment 152
	 Moved by Lord Young of Norwood Green
	152: Clause 42, page 49, line 23, after "the" insert "missing"

Lord Young of Norwood Green: My Lords, I rise to propose this super-group of government amendments, aimed at addressing noble Lords' concerns expressed in Committee and at Second Reading. The overall effects of these amendments are to introduce a plain English definition of an orphan work; make the search requirement "diligent"; make orphan works registers more easily accessible; make it compulsory for the treatment of royalties to be regulated; specify what topics must be covered in the codes; extend regulation to all authorised bodies; and make it compulsory for the Secretary of State to consult on the conditions for authorisation of orphan works and extended licensing schemes with those likely to be affected by the establishment of such schemes.
	Amendment 156 inserts the plain English definition of orphan works called for during our previous debate. The search is now required to be diligent rather than reasonable. The definition and the sources that must be searched are in line with best practice, particularly the recommendations of the High Level Expert Group on Digital Libraries. Some of your Lordships had concerns about the registers for orphan works. Amendment 156 provides for the regulations to specify the format of these registers and for them to be publicly available. This will facilitate ease of searching for rights holders. To create a system that incentivises searching for the copyright owner, we have made provision in Amendment 156 for non-compliance to be actionable as a breach of statutory duty. The Secretary of State may impose sanctions, including a financial penalty, where the authorised person is in breach of its authorisation requirements-for example, failing to search diligently the required sources.
	Amendment 157 provides for the regulation of any authorised body or person, while Amendment 169 may require them to adopt codes of practice. Some of your Lordships expressed concerns about the other persons being authorised. I hope that the extension of the regulation will reassure noble Lords that the safeguards apply to all persons authorised.
	Amendment 159 introduces a requirement to consult those who may be affected by an authorisation for orphan works or by extended licensing. This could be used to consult on questions such as whether a body is sufficiently representative to be granted an authorisation or whether a majority-and if so, what majority-of rights holders would need to agree to the establishment of a scheme before it could be authorised.
	Amendment 177 sets out the topics that must be contained in the codes of practice. These include accounting arrangements in relation to royalties, complaints handling, transparency requirements and arrangements for holding sums for the copyright owners. These are designed to ensure that the codes capture minimum standards of fairness and transparency.
	The last amendment that I shall single out is Amendment 180, which makes it mandatory for the regulations to cover the treatment of royalties and the deduction of administrative costs. The remaining amendments make equivalent provisions for performers' rights and have the same effect.
	I apologise for speaking at some length. I hope that I have reassured your Lordships that we have listened carefully to the comments made in this House in Committee and on Second Reading and taken them on board in this package of amendments. I beg to move.

Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, I would be grateful if my noble friend could give clarification on a couple of questions. The great majority of amendments in this large group seem to me entirely appropriate, but I want to ask him about the substitution of the word "diligent" for "reasonable" in Amendment 156. In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, suggested that the word "diligent" would be preferable, partly because it matched language emanating from Europe and partly because we are used to the concept of due diligence, which suggests a properly conscientious search. However, I am a little worried that replacing "reasonable" with "diligent" will tend to perpetuate the requirement for institutions to conduct immensely time-consuming and expensive inquiries to track down copyright holders that are doomed to be fruitless because the copyright holders are not there or are not traceable. I wonder what my noble friend considers that the difference will be in practice between "diligent" and "reasonable". It seemed to me that "reasonable" was a perfectly satisfactory term and that the Government's first thoughts were right. I am interested to see that the use of the word "reasonable" persists in new sub-paragraph (8)(a) in Schedule 2. I personally prefer it.
	Amendment 159 states that the Secretary of State must consult various persons,
	"before making provision as to requirements for a person's becoming or remaining authorised".
	When the Secretary of State is minded to authorise an institution to license the use of copyright material consisting of orphan works, who would he be obliged to consult? Again, if those who hold the copyright for orphan works cannot be found, how can the Secretary of State consult them or their representatives?

Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, I simply wanted to respond early to the Minister's amendments. Although I am going to be like Oliver and ask for more in due course under the clause stand part debate, I am very grateful to the Minister for having so carefully considered some of the points made in Committee. There is no doubt that the government amendments improve Clause 42. The big question is whether they improve it enough.

Lord Howie of Troon: I have spoken only once before in this lengthy debate and that was on Clause 42, on the definition of orphan works. I spoke on behalf of the Periodical Publishers Association, of which I am the vice-president. We felt then that the definition was inadequate. The association did not think that it was a proper definition at all. I was glad when, after a brief debate in Committee, the Minister, to my surprise, said that he agreed with me and would go back to consider what had been said and see whether a better definition could be arrived at. He has, in fact, done that-I think to the satisfaction of the association. On the question of "reasonable" and "diligent", we suggested the form of words "reasonably diligent". However, I have no intention of quibbling over that. "Diligent" is good enough for me and I am satisfied with the Minister's approach, as is, I am sure, the association.

Baroness Buscombe: I very much hope that the Minister will not weaken his resolve over the terminology. "Diligent", as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said, suggests something that is a conscious and perhaps more conscientious approach to ensuring that what needs to be done in order to find out whether something really is an orphan work takes place.

Lord Puttnam: This is an area to which I have given a huge amount of thought and put in a lot of work over the past 35 years. The Government have done a remarkable job in finding a way through a very complicated area. The most important result will be that works that have not previously been freely available will, effectively, be released into the public domain. This is a major victory and it would be a great pity-I am looking at the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, when I say this-if we tried to make the perfect the enemy of the good. These amendments are a very good compromise, which I commend the Government for having achieved.

Lord De Mauley: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the Minister for bringing forward these amendments. He apologised for taking so long in doing so, but I thought that he was commendably brief. The amendments represent a considerable improvement on how this Bill was previously drafted. Although many critical details remain left to secondary legislation, some important safeguards dealing with the implementation of this power have now been set out in statute. I should like, if I may, to probe the Minister a little more on where the stored royalties are likely to end up after the stipulated period is completed and a copyright owner has not emerged. I appreciate that the finer detail will be left to consultation, but perhaps he can give us a little more information on where all the money will go.

Lord Young of Norwood Green: I thank noble Lords for their contributions. On the comments of my noble friend Lord Howarth about the use of "diligent" instead of "reasonable", we believe that the emphasis is important. Although there will be consultations, our view is that there will be differences in different situations and we are trying to achieve a balance. My noble friend Lord Puttnam rightly reminded us that we must not forget the primary objective with which we started out. It is a noble and important objective, whereby we want to be able to release works that for years have not been able to see the light of day, while at the same time wanting to ensure that people conduct a "diligent" search. I rather like the emphasis of that word. We are not asking people to go on ad infinitum, but we want to feel assured that when these works are released there has been a diligent search.
	My noble friend Lord Howarth also asked who the Secretary of State will consult. My information is that the Secretary of State will consult widely across the same class of authors as those who are likely to be affected. That may not catch the specific authors but it will take into account their likely concerns.
	The noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, asked about stored royalties; he has obviously remembered what happens when private detectives are asked to follow the money. Unfortunately, we cannot yet give a perfect answer on that. No decision has been taken yet, but there is a possibility of a fund for creators or something on those lines. There will be consultations in relation to that.
	I hope that we have addressed a wide range of concerns that were expressed in Committee. I would like to think that we have covered the waterfront, so to speak, and I hope in the light of that-

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: No, it is your amendment.

Lord Young of Norwood Green: Yes, I am coming to that; I realise that now. I hope that the House will feel able to support the government amendments and I beg to move.

Lord Puttnam: Perhaps my noble friend the Minister would like to use the authority granted him by the Dispatch Box to make it clear that public bodies, such as the British Film Institute or the British Library, would not find the hurdle created by the word "diligent" so high that they were in effect not able to clear material. It would be quite absurd if public money was used to clear material for public purposes and for the hurdle to become so high that it becomes unaffordable.

Lord Young of Norwood Green: I can certainly give that assurance because I believe that that is the intention of the House.
	Amendment 152 agreed.
	Amendment 153
	 Moved by Lord Young of Norwood Green
	153: Clause 42, page 49, line 23, at end insert-
	"(1A) Where the missing copyright owner is not the sole owner of copyright in the work, an authorisation does not affect the need for consent from any other owner of copyright."
	Amendment 153 agreed.
	Amendment 153A
	 Moved by Viscount Bridgeman
	153A: Clause 42, page 49, line 23, at end insert-
	"( ) Regulations under subsection (1) shall only provide for authorising a licensing body that represents a substantial number of authors or, as appropriate, performers of the type of works for which the licence is to be granted."

Viscount Bridgeman: With the leave of the House I shall speak also to Amendment 172A.
	These amendments centre around my continuing concerns, expressed also by several noble Lords, about the need for information on the regulations in the Bill. They are designed to ensure that copyright holders remain in control of their own creativity. Also, I share the concern which has been voiced elsewhere in the House that the default inclusion of rights holders in the licensing scheme is likely, on occasions, to conflict directly with primary licences between rights holders and users. I am aware that the Minister has written about the opt-outs in correspondence, but I should be grateful if he would take this opportunity of clarifying that for the record.
	As I see it, the fundamental principles of copyright are subverted by requiring rights holders to opt out of such a scheme if they wish to retain control over how their work is licensed. The provisions covered by this amendment would give rights holders an opportunity, in a closer environment, to keep in touch with any collecting societies which are entrusted with the licensing of their rights. The effect of both of these amendments is to safeguard as far as possible communications between creators and users, either directly or through licensing bodies.
	Amendment 177A returns to the theme of the regulations. The Government are to be commended for setting out the considerations which need to be addressed in the code, and I pay tribute to the Minister for his enunciation of the various ways in which the Government have met some of the concerns expressed in earlier stages of this debate. However, I ask them once again to take one step back and not only address the code criteria, which have been admirably set out, but to give some outline guidance of what the regulations will say.
	I turn now to Amendment 172A, the extra amendment which has been included in this group. For reasons it is not necessary to go into here, this Bill has had little time for preparation. I have no doubt that had more time been available, much more detail on the proposed regulations would have been available in the Bill.
	The Bill will not complete its passage through both Houses, and thus will not be subject to the scrutiny of Bills provided by the normal procedure. I am not in favour of using the super-alternative procedure as a routine device to enable statutory instruments to be modified. However, I ask the Minister to agree that these are exceptional circumstances. The content of the regulations will be fundamental to the operation of Clause 42. Nothing at present is known about the content or intentions of the regulations, and the 60-day consultation period available under the procedure would be a valuable extra means of securing debate on the structure of suitable regulations. It would go a long way towards allowing the misgivings on many sides about the efficacy of Clause 42. I am sorry that I have not been able to give the Minister more notice of the amendment and will be grateful for his views. I beg to move.

Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, I will reserve most of my comments on Clause 42 for the debate on Amendment 167. I put my name to the amendment of the noble Viscount because Clause 42 covers the overriding issue of the content of the regulations and how they will be approved. This is the common theme of all the amendments in the group. I hope that the Minister will cast more light on that in the course of the debate, which will influence discussion on Amendment 167 as well.

Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, I rise briefly to support my noble friend's amendment, to which I have added my name. I also pay tribute to the Government, who clearly have listened through the stages of the Bill. However, I still see beyond your Lordships' House a degree of concern, as expressed by my noble friend, particularly at the speed with which we all have had to respond to the Bill-and the Government in turn are responding as well. Because of a lack of information, there is concern about what will be in the regulations. The amendments in this group are an attempt to enhance communication between creators and licensing bodies. We believe that the amendments should be supported because they are totally positive. We must reassure creators who may not have the influence of some large institutions, or the means to access professional advice to assist them in responding to Clause 42.

Lord Howarth of Newport: I will make some brief comments and raise some questions about the amendments in this group. I will start with Amendment 153A. How would a cultural institution, a museum or library, be accommodated under the rubric? The amendment is aimed at defending the legitimate interests of the commercial sector, but in so doing ignores the legitimate interests of the cultural sector and of the public. It would drive a coach and horses through the intent of the clause, which is to create a regime to deal effectively with the problem of orphan works.
	Amendments 155A and 155B relate to proposed new Section 116B of the 1988 Act. If proposed new Section 116A depends on 116B, the amendments would be unacceptable. They would work when copyright owners could be identified, but with orphan works, where copyright owners cannot be identified, they would not. We must deal differently with the two categories. If the amendments rule out the authorisation of cultural institutions, which the Secretary of State may for good reasons wish to authorise where orphan works are concerned, they will not do.
	I am pleased to tell noble Lords that I have no problem with Amendment 177A.

Lord De Mauley: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Bridgeman raises important points, and I entirely agree with his amendments. Amendments 153A and 155B merely set out what the Minister has already promised. I hope they will be accepted in principle if not in the precise wording.
	I also agree with the principle behind Amendment 155A. Copyright owners understandably have considerable concern about these provisions. If they see no benefit in this system, it is clear that adequate safeguards have not yet been put in place, and I suggest that we ignore their wishes at our peril.
	On Amendment 172A, I share my noble friend's concerns. It is not good practice to leave so much pertinent detail about a code to secondary legislation. We can be forgiven for fearing that the Government are still making knee-jerk legislation rather than properly thought-through policy.
	Lastly, as regards Amendment 177A, it seems to me axiomatic that such details must be included in the regulations. We look forward to the Minister's response.

Lord Young of Norwood Green: My Lords, Amendment 153A argues for orphan works schemes to be limited to licensing bodies, an issue we debated extensively in Committee. The Government believe that there is no reason to exclude cultural organisations which have acted as foster parents to large numbers of orphan works from eligibility to run such schemes. It is possible that these organisations may find it more efficient to use licensing bodies, but that is for the market to decide. We should not rule them out in the first instance. For this reason we cannot accept Amendment 153A.
	However, I bring your Lordships good news on Amendments 155A and 155B. The Government have always intended that extended licensing schemes should be run by representative licensing bodies. We therefore agree to consider Amendments 155A and 155B and will bring our proposals to Third Reading.
	On Amendment 177A, the term "licensing body" is already defined in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. It is used more widely than in the new provisions introduced by Clause 42. The addition of qualifying criteria to this definition could have serious implications for other areas of legislation dealing with copyright licensing.
	The provisions of Clause 42 and Schedule 2, as currently drafted, allow the setting of requirements for any body wishing to become an authorising body, whether they wish to operate extended collective licensing or an orphan works scheme. It is already the case that we will be able to set the right entrance criteria to avoid unsuitable bodies applying for these extra powers. I reiterate that there is now an obligation on the Government to consult on the conditions for authorisation. This will enable us to limit the extension of these powers only to those bodies which are suitable for the job.
	Amendment 172A would require regulations imposing codes of practice on persons authorised to license orphan works and licensing bodies to be subject to a super-affirmative procedure. I cannot accept that the noble Lord's proposal is the right or proportionate way to deliver scrutiny for two reasons. First, we are having a very full debate now as part of the scrutiny of this primary legislation; and secondly, we have provided that the order will be considered under the affirmative procedure, so there will be further parliamentary debate on any order. The affirmative procedure will apply to the first exercise of these powers. This was introduced by government amendment in response to a recommendation, after all, of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The committee is satisfied that this is a satisfactory level of scrutiny. We are committed to full consultation between all appropriate parties on the regulations, as I have said already, and the results of consultation can shape a workable proposal that takes account of the views of all parties.
	Super-affirmative procedure is appropriate to very wide-ranging powers. In this situation, we are talking about codes of practice that are designed to maintain the balance of power between licensor and licensee, and to ensure minimum standards of fairness and transparency. In this circumstance we believe, as did the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, that affirmative resolution is adequate scrutiny. The super-affirmative procedure would simply add delay and cost.
	I hope that in the light of the assurance that I have given to bring forward two amendments on Third Reading and my explanations on the other amendments, the noble Viscount will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Viscount Bridgeman: I just say to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, that we certainly did not intend to be disruptive in any way. I take on board the Minister's comment on Amendment 153A. Clearly, I am disappointed with his reply on the super-affirmative proposal. We all know the limitations of affirmative procedures and that they cannot be modified. However, I am grateful for his explanation and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment 153A withdrawn.
	Amendments 154 and 155
	 Moved by Lord Young of Norwood Green
	154: Clause 42, page 49, line 27, leave out "may" and insert "must"
	155: Clause 42, page 49, line 35, leave out from "in" to end of line 36 and insert "a register kept in accordance with section 116CB(1)."
	Amendments 154 and 155 agreed.
	Amendments 155A and 155B not moved.
	Amendment 155C
	 Moved by Lord De Mauley
	155C: Clause 42, page 50, line 7, at end insert-
	"(2A) Before granting any licence in respect of works in which copyright is not owned by the body or a person on whose behalf the body acts, the relevant licensing body must publish guidelines on how to exclude a work by notice under subsection 2(b).
	(2B) Before publishing guidelines under subsection (2A) above, the licensing body must consult copyright owners and creator of the type of works for which the licence is to be granted."

Lord De Mauley: My Lords, we have already had a useful debate with a gratifying number of government amendments about the safeguards necessary for an effective orphan works scheme. It is unfortunate that we do not have a similar number of government amendments to welcome in relation to collective licensing. Amendment 155C is intended to ensure a minimum safeguard for a proper system of collective licensing. The Bill contemplates the possibility of a copyright owner opting out from a collective licensing system, but gives no detail as to what sort of system might be considered acceptable. Unlike with orphan works, where the licence body has to undertake a diligent search before it can grant licences, the onus here is on the copyright owner to protect his material from being licensed without his permission.
	As such, the opt-out system must be as transparent and as simple as possible. Our amendment is intended to engage copyright owners of the type who will be represented in the process of establishing what system would be most effective. The opt-out provisions must bring notice of that power to as many rights holders as possible, as well as making it easy for them to opt out should they wish to remove their work collective licensing. I hope that the Minister sees the wisdom of that point, and I beg to move.

The Earl of Erroll: I presume that publishing something under either creative commons, new public licence or something similar would be an automatic opt-out from some other collective licensing scheme.

Lord Young of Norwood Green: My Lords, we welcome the spirit of this amendment. One question that we must ask rights holders in our extensive consultation before any schemes are authorised or regulations made is how the opt-out mechanism should work for their particular sector. Our premise is that it should be designed to be as unburdensome as possible, but we need each sector to tell us how that should work. It is completely sensible that sectoral guidelines be published once we know how the mechanism works. As those issues will be covered by the Government's consultation and included in the regulations, we do not think we need to require licensing bodies to consult additionally. For those reasons, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

Lord De Mauley: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. I agree with much of what he said and I look forward to the consultation. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment 155C withdrawn.
	Amendment 155D
	 Moved by Lord De Mauley
	155D: Clause 42, page 50, line 7, at end insert-
	"( ) The regulations must require all licensed bodies to publish and maintain a register of all works for which they are granting licences in respect of works in which the copyright is not owned by the body or a person on whose behalf the body acts."

Lord De Mauley: This amendment is again intended to impose the same level of transparency on Section 116B as the Government have conceded for the orphan works register. How is a copyright owner to know that his work has been licensed out without his express permission if there is not a clear and accessible register which he can check? Such a register would be a minimum criterion of any authorisation, and I hope the Minister will accept, if not the precise wording of the amendment, at least the principle behind it. I beg to move.

Lord Young of Norwood Green: My Lords, the Government are sympathetic to this amendment, which would allow bodies authorised to run extended licensing schemes to hold a register with details of the works of non-members from whom it does not have a specific mandate to license. It could be possible for such a licensing body to hold such a register, but it is unlikely that it would be accurate. Blanket licensing, even when the licensing body licenses in non-extended licensing mode, works so that the usage is only known after it has been reported by the licensee. Thus the register cannot be fully up to date at any time.
	I would like to explain how the system could be designed to reach non-members so that they are aware that their works are being licensed. First, an authorised body may be required to give wide notice of the establishment and the parameters of its extended licensing scheme. This could include national and sectoral advertising aimed at bringing the scheme to the notice of rights holders in case they wish to opt out. Secondly, there is now an obligation to consult with those likely to be affected before the authorisation of the scheme. Thirdly, the authorised body will need to distribute royalties to both members and non-members, creating an obligation to seek out non-members whose works have been licensed to pay them their royalties.
	We consider that these provisions will operate to ensure that an authorised licensing body does not license works that have been opted out of a licensing scheme and is fully accountable to the non-members whose works it licenses under these arrangements. The consultation requirements will ensure that regulations introducing extended licensing are structured so that the system functions properly. In the light of these comments and assurances, I hope that the noble Lord will be able to withdraw his amendment.

Lord De Mauley: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his helpful explanation and, in light of it, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment 155D withdrawn.
	Amendments 156 to 166
	 Moved by Lord Young of Norwood Green
	156: Clause 42, page 50, line 11, leave out from beginning to end of line 38 on page 51 and insert-
	"116CA Meaning of "orphan work"
	(1) A work is an orphan work if a person-
	(a) has carried out a diligent search to find or, if necessary, to identify and find, the owner of, or of an interest in, copyright in the work, and
	(b) has published the notice required by this section,
	but has not found the owner.
	(2) References to the missing copyright owner in relation to an orphan work are references to that owner.
	(3) For the purposes of subsection (1)(a) the person carrying out the search must in particular-
	(a) make such use as is reasonable of sources of information, including sources within subsection (4), relating to the work's apparent country of origin, and
	(b) have regard to any presumptions under section 104 or 105 that would apply in relation to the work in any proceedings.
	(4) The sources referred to in subsection (3)(a) are-
	(a) licensing bodies;
	(b) associations of publishers or authors;
	(c) systems for identifying works of the type concerned;
	(d) published library catalogues and indexes;
	(e) public databases, including public records that may indicate successors in title.
	(5) For the purposes of subsection (3)(b) a work's apparent country of origin is the country which the person carrying out the search reasonably believes is most likely to be-
	(a) the country of the work's first publication, or
	(b) if the work has not been published, the country with which its making is most closely connected.
	(6) The notice required by subsection (1)(a) is notice of the proposal to enter the interest concerned in a register kept in accordance with section 116CB(1), published in a way designed to bring the proposal to the attention of the owner of the interest.
	(7) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend any of the preceding provisions of this section.
	116CB Orphan works: registration and compliance
	(1) Regulations made by the Secretary of State must provide for an authorisation under section 116A or 116B to have effect in respect of an interest of a missing copyright owner only if the interest is entered in a register kept by the authorised person (an "orphan works register").
	(2) The regulations must-
	(a) specify the form of an orphan works register and how it is to be kept, and
	(b) provide for an orphan works register to be made available to the public.
	(3) An entry in an orphan works register must include a sufficient record of the steps taken for the purposes of section 116CA(1)(a) and (b).
	(4) An authorised person must not enter an interest in an orphan works register unless the authorised person-
	(a) has taken the steps referred to in section 116CA(1)(a) and (b) and has not found the owner of the interest, or
	(b) has reasonable grounds for believing that another person has taken those steps and that the owner of the interest has not been found.
	(5) If an interest is entered in an authorised person's orphan works register and the authorised person finds the owner of the interest, the authorised person must remove the entry.
	(6) If in relation to an interest entered in an authorised person's orphan works register, the authorised person-
	(a) is aware that any of the steps referred to in section 116CA(1)(a) and (b) was not taken, or
	(b) is aware of information that makes it no longer reasonable to rely on the steps taken,
	the authorised person must as soon as possible take those steps or remove the entry.
	(7) Where an interest is entered in an orphan works register, regulations under section 116A or 116B may provide for an authorisation under that section to have effect in respect of that interest despite a failure to take steps referred to in section 116CA(1)(a) or (b) or to comply with any of subsections (4) to (6).
	(8) But a failure by an authorised person to comply with any of subsections (4) to (6) is actionable as a breach of statutory duty owed to the owner of the interest concerned (and see paragraph 3 of Schedule A1).
	(9) Any guidance issued by the Secretary of State must be taken into account in deciding whether a person has taken the steps referred to in section 116CA(1)(a) or (b) or has complied with subsection (3).
	(10) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend any of the preceding provisions of this section."
	157: Clause 42, page 51, leave out lines 41 to 43 and insert-
	"(a) the regulation of licensing bodies, and of persons other than licensing bodies who are authorised under section 116A;
	(b) enforcement for the purposes of such regulation, or otherwise for the purposes of sections 116A to 116CB."
	158: Clause 42, page 52, line 1, leave out "116C" and insert "116CB"
	159: Clause 42, page 52, line 7, at end insert-
	"( ) Before making provision as to requirements for a person's becoming or remaining authorised under section 116A or 116B, the Secretary of State must consult the persons the Secretary of State thinks likely to be affected (or persons who represent such persons) and such other persons as the Secretary of State thinks fit."
	160: Clause 42, page 52, line 8, leave out "116C" and insert "116CB"
	161: Clause 42, page 52, line 19, leave out "116C" and insert "116CB"
	162: Clause 42, page 52, line 20, leave out "section 116C or another" and insert "any"
	163: Clause 42, page 52, line 28, at end insert-
	
		
			 ""missing copyright owner (in relation to an orphan work) section 116CA";" 
		
	
	164: Clause 42, page 52, line 29, leave out "116C" and insert "116CA"
	165: Clause 42, page 52, line 30, at end insert-
	
		
			 ""missing rights owner (in relation to orphan rights) paragraph 1CA of Schedule 2A";" 
		
	
	166: Clause 42, page 52, line 31, leave out "1C" and insert "1CA"
	Amendments 156 to 166 agreed.
	Amendment 167
	 Moved by Lord Clement-Jones
	167: Clause 42, leave out Clause 42

Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, we now move back to the issue of orphan works under the first part of Clause 42. As I mentioned earlier, many of the government amendments-indeed all of them-are extremely welcome and I very much welcome the attempts of the Government to improve the orphan works provisions in Clause 42. It is clear that photographers and photographic libraries that are still concerned by Clause 42 recognise some of the assurances that have been given by the Minister in his letter and by the Intellectual Property Office in its meetings with the Royal Photographic Society and others. Some of those assurances include that there is no requirement to register works but this will be considered. There will be no central register for the moment but, as was mentioned, the Minister is not unsympathetic.
	Anyone wishing to use an unattributed image will be required to approach a licensing body which will work to search requirements laid down by regulations established by Parliament. Regulations will not be implemented until appropriate technology and licensing procedures have been agreed with the stakeholders, including the Royal Photographic Society. Something I thought was particularly important was that deliberate or negligent misidentification will carry an appropriate sanction. It is suggested that the level of fee and diligence of search will be such that publishing an orphan work over a newly commissioned image would not be advantageous. The proposed legislation, however, is an enabling Act. The detail will be in the regulations which will be composed following consultation with stakeholders and approved by Parliament.
	Nevertheless, those assurances give rise to many questions. Of course these are but assurances-they are not in the Bill-and it is not necessarily clear how the regulations will be put together after a change of government or otherwise. In the view of these photographers, orphan works will in effect be licensed under retrospective legislation, as photographers who have engaged the models via agencies for specific usages and licensed those images for specific usages were in a position to make and honour those commitments when those contracts were signed, but their ability to do so will have been subsequently and unpredictably legislated away.
	The very existence of orphan works licensing may result in photographers being unable to contract for exclusive use, because they cannot guarantee that any given work will not at some point become orphaned and legitimately licensed to other users, competitors and so on. In all the creative industries, models, actors, artists, composers, rights holders of embedded copyright works and others customarily contract for and charge usage fees, and limit usage based on the assumption that the primary holder of the intellectual property rights will retain control of those rights and be bound by their contractual obligations.
	There is also the argument that orphan works licensing for commercial purposes breaches Article 9 of the Berne agreement and Article 13 of the TRIPs agreement-the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual rights-and I hope that the Minister will be able to address that. It is argued that orphan works licensing undermines the rights holder's ability to guarantee a client exclusive use, and therefore falls foul of those provisions.
	Then there is the question of moral rights. I note that the Minister has undertaken to engage in discussions on this subject, and a later amendment will no doubt be the subject of debate, but, again, there is no provision in the Bill to compel publishers to attribute the first step for orphan status. Germany and France have strong moral rights, and publishers-consumers of content-are profitable. The argument that this is too expensive for publishers is removed.
	In many cases, metadata are routinely removed without the user's knowledge. Photographs that are uploaded to most photographic websites, such as Flickr, have their metadata stripped as part of the process. Most commonly available photo-manipulation software routinely removes metadata during the conversion of images to web-friendly file formats. Consequently, it must be assumed that any image that is uploaded to the internet in any form, or manipulated by a third party in any way, is vulnerable to inadvertent orphaning.
	No distinction is made between the commercial and non-commercial exploitation of works. Commercially produced imagery usually includes models and proprietary artefacts, the consent and fees for which have been based on limited and defined usages of those photographs. Other usages would have commanded extra fees. Some usages would be forbidden in all circumstances. The client for whom the photographs have been made is likely to have signed a contract for exclusive use.
	The Government have promised a fair licence fee and a market rate, but there is no such thing; each image is subject to the operating costs of its creator, the rarity and the subject. This is like trying to state that there is a market rate for art. The costs of production, the rarity value, the skill and the perceived status of the photographer all differ. Some photographs contain images of expensive professional models, property, released copyright artefacts, and so on. Others are snapshots. They may be difficult to tell apart visually, but will command radically different rates.
	Work may be used in a context with which the photographer is not happy. The photograph's copyright holder-or, indeed, other stakeholders in the image, such as models, their agencies and others-might have commercial, political, religious, moral or ethical objections to possible uses to which the picture might be put and refuse permission in all circumstances if it was sought. By definition, the collective licensing of orphan works can take no account of that.
	I welcome the fact that exclusions can be made from the framework, but how can contemporary photography be defined if that is the subject of exclusion? How do we know whether an orphan is contemporary?
	On diligent search, there is no real mechanism or method for finding the creator of an image, and the Government have not yet put together a statement that details how this will work. Again, this will be complicated by the fact that there is no central archive or register.
	On the rights of the subject of the photograph, commercial photographs require a signed model release, often with clauses stating the precise terms of use. This is another aspect that needs to be dealt with.
	I turn to contractual exclusivity. No photographer will henceforth be able to license an image on an exclusive basis. The image may well be in use elsewhere as an orphan. There are major international implications and chances of liability as a result. An orphan used here in the UK, but registered in the US, could expose the user to huge fines-something up to $150,000 per infringement in California, for example. There is, however, no mechanism to search the US register for images. How will the Government hold the ring when it comes to putting together orphan rights proposals which impact on the photographic profession? The situation is extremely polarised between some creators and those whom they believe will unjustly commercially exploit their photographs.
	On these Benches, we have absolutely no quarrel with the cultural sector. We believe that is an entirely appropriate and proper use of orphan works, and, indeed, will resolve some of the long-standing issues that the cultural sector has. The concerns of photographers and photographic libraries revolve almost entirely around the problems of commercial use. Some, such as the Getty library-rather late in the day, I admit-have put forward some extremely interesting ideas, so that a cultural body can be authorised, as an authorised body, for specified purposes, to use orphan works. However, this clause would be further circumscribed in those circumstances. I look forward to what the Minister has to say. I beg to move.

Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has just made some important points on behalf of photographers-and I do not depreciate them-but in tabling this amendment to leave out Clause 42, he has resorted to the nuclear option. This seems to be a strange resort for a Liberal Democrat. If we accept this amendment, we abandon any attempt to deal with the orphan works problem. As we noted in Committee, the scale of that problem is very significant indeed. It is estimated that there are some 50 million orphan works in museums, libraries and archives spread across the public sector, and the British Library is of the view that some 40 per cent of the material housed in its archives is made up of orphan works.
	Under the law as we now have it, hugely time-consuming and expensive searches have to be undertaken or else vast amounts of material are effectively quarantined and left in limbo. Moreover, respectable academic and cultural institutions find themselves operating on the margins of the law. Nor should the House underestimate the economic significance of this. United Kingdom universities generated £59 billion for the UK economy in 2009, more than the pharmaceutical industry or the agricultural sector. We should not hamper the universities in making reasonable and proper use of the assets in their archives and libraries that are of potential scholarly, educational or cultural value-subject, of course, to all the safeguards in the Bill, as improved by the amendments that have been accepted and as it will be fleshed out by regulations.
	I turn to a more general point about the character of this Bill and the way Parliament has had the opportunity to examine it. I am frankly puzzled as to why the Bill was not constructed and designed to show a clear distinction between the treatment of orphan works with little or no commercial value but important scholarly, educational or cultural value, and commercially produced material that is in copyright. It would have facilitated our analysis of it and made it far easier for us to give a fair wind to the parts that everybody in practice has agreed should be supported. But the two elements of the Bill have been so inextricably tangled up with each other that we have found ourselves in considerable difficulty.
	I suggest with great respect to the Minister that it would have been much easier for Parliament and the interests that are affected by this legislation had the Government exhibited draft regulations at the same time as they exhibited the Bill or, preferably, a draft Bill. Had they then consulted with all the stakeholders on the whole of this draft legislation together, they would have saved huge amounts of worry and parliamentary time.
	Most of our debates on Clause 42 have reflected the legitimate anxieties of interest groups which do not know how their work and their livelihood will be affected and fear an inappropriate use of the large powers sketched out in the Bill. This anxiety, and the time that has been spent debating these fears, was really unnecessary. Should it not be the normal way of proceeding with technical legislation of this kind-on which there is not a party political difference and everybody is feeling their way forward-that all concerned have the opportunity to consider draft material at reasonable length? In that way, everybody would understand where they stood, the Government could listen to advice and we could then have legislation that was properly considered and approved by those who knew most about it. It would be far easier for Parliament to handle.
	I do not think it is a good thing to take large, vague powers in primary legislation without at the same time specifying the practical applications that the Government intend, and showing how the regulations will limit an inappropriate use of those powers.

Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, that it is not particularly constructive, which is a sad reflection, to say that had we had the consultation period, my concerns about a super-affirmative resolution would have been irrelevant. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that we will address the subjects of metadata and moral rights in the next amendment, but I would like to associate myself with his very comprehensive remarks on metadata before the Minister replies.

Lord Young of Norwood Green: My Lords, Clause 42 allows for the authorisation of orphan works and extended licensing schemes. This includes a statutory obligation to consult those who are likely to be affected before setting the requirements for authorisation of these schemes. It may not be the perfect way of proceeding, but we believe that it provides an assurance. I tended to agree with my noble friend Lord Howarth, at least in the first part of his contribution, that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, was rather a nuclear option.
	On the other point made by my noble friend about commercial versus non-commercial, the key point is to ensure fairness to rights holders. It is not an arbitrary distinction between commercial and non-commercial use; it is about ensuring that there is an adequate regulation of organisations running orphan works or extended licensing schemes. The Government are aware that different sectors have different needs, and these provisions will give them the flexibility to tailor the details of licensing schemes so that they are appropriate for different areas. If it proves impossible to devise a scheme for a particular area that does not unfairly disadvantage rights holders' interests, the Government will have the flexibility to not authorise any scheme to be set up in those areas.
	The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, also spoke about possible damages in the US. Licences will only affect the UK, so I am advised that there is no possibility of US damages.
	For clarity, I should explain that extended licensing does not remove the owner's control of copyright or performers' rights. Rights holders who are members of licensing bodies will be able to influence whether these bodies adopt extended licensing. Rights holders who are not members will be able to opt out by giving notice. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has been a champion of photographers' rights; I can reassure him that we have listened to the concerns of photographers and other copyright owners, and I want to make six points.
	First, we have met with representatives of the photographic sector, including the Royal Photographic Society. We found the meetings helpful and have tabled amendments to address the concerns raised. We will continue to work with photographers and other rights holders and creators as we develop these proposals through consultation.
	Secondly, the orphan works framework incentivises diligent searching, so no financial advantage should be gained from the misidentification of a work as orphan. Deliberate or negligent misidentification must carry appropriate sanctions. Thus, if a person fails to comply with their authorisation, for example by not carrying out a diligent search, they could be subject to regulatory sanctions including a financial penalty and the revocation of the authorisation. They may also be subject to actions for breach of statutory duty. Furthermore, we have outlined the requirements for diligent searching. These are in line with best practice, including the European High Level Expert Group on Digital Libraries. We will develop these further in our consultations, and if we find that there are no means to carry out a suitable search in a sector, that may be a strong indicator that the powers to authorise the use of orphan works should not be used in that sector.
	Thirdly, the orphan works provision does not affect the licensing arrangements that photographers have in place and does not affect their ability to grant licences on an exclusive or any other basis in the future. This, I know, was a matter of grave concern to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. It is unlikely that these sorts of managed high-value images will become orphan. Where the rights holder can be identified, whether or not metadata accompany the work, they will be traceable by the diligent searching process. At present, if photographs are used without the consent of the rights holder or creator, they would need to take legal action to gain redress. The difference for the rights holder whose work is wrongly used under an authorised orphan works scheme is that there will be a clear point of contact and a simple process by which they can check for use of their works and claim any money being held for them.
	Fourthly, some have argued that the orphan works provisions breach the Berne convention and TRIPS. The clause does not introduce exceptions to copyright or performers' rights, so Article 9 of the Berne convention and Article 13 of TRIPS do not apply. However, we confirm that the introduction of the orphan works provisions do not alter rights owners' ability to license their copyright or performers' rights on an exclusive or any other basis.
	Fifthly, we recognise the problems caused by metadata being removed from works. This is something we need to take into account when considering whether digital images should be capable of being licensed under orphan works regulations. We will ask this question in the consultation, but for now I want to make it absolutely clear that the removal of metadata does not render a work orphan. I stress the point. It is now mandatory for treatment of royalties to be regulated in regulations permitting the use of orphan works. We envisage that the licensing of orphan works will be at the market rate where one exists. In any case, we intend that as far as possible, rights holders will get a similar return regardless of who licenses their work. This will guard against the unfair distortion of existing markets. These provisions will allow licences to be granted only in certain specific circumstances. There will be no change to privacy law, no change to contract law, and no change to the existing law on moral rights.
	Sixthly, the Government are aware that different sectors have different needs. These provisions give us the flexibility to tailor the regulations so that they are appropriate for licensing different types of copyright works or performers' rights. As explained in Committee, if we find through consultation that certain types of works such as contemporary photography cannot be included in this framework without causing harm to rights holders, we will have the flexibility to exclude them, which addresses another point of concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I also want to emphasise that we have addressed concerns about the breadth of these powers by introducing a requirement that the first exercise of powers under proposed new Sections 116A and 116B of the 1988 Act and the equivalent provision for performers' rights is to be subject to the affirmative procedure.
	Finally, I hope the flesh that we have put on these proposals will give the noble Lord the assurances he asked for at Second Reading and in Committee. I hope he will also agree that we have struck the right balance between making it clear in the Bill how these powers are to be exercised while not pre-empting the outcome of the existing consultations that will precede the regulations. In the light of these assurances, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

Lord Clement-Jones: I thank the Minister for that very comprehensive and somewhat reassuring reply, although I shall come back on a number of points. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, was going to give me a hard time in his speech, but in the end I admit that I ended up agreeing almost completely with his comments about the way in which this clause could have been drafted. As in the music hall joke, we would not have started from here if we had had half a chance. It is unfortunate, but this is the clause we have. The nuclear option is not really a nuclear option because I do not plan to divide the House on this. However, it was fairly successful on the last occasion in the debate on whether the clause should stand part of the Bill which elicited quite a lot of amendments from the Government. I hope that the Government will look further at this, and certainly at some of the issues they will consult on, particularly in the light of our debates.
	There is absolutely no question in my mind about the benefits of this to universities, cultural and education institutions. It is a common factor across the House. It is about particular sectors, and I am glad to say that the Minister has picked up on that entirely. We are not trying to destroy the whole concept, but there are some tricky economic factors at work here, and in the end it will depend on some extremely careful and sensitive consultation.
	Even though both Ministers at this stage and in Committee have protested that this is not a question of commercial versus non-commercial, the vast bulk of the people reading this clause believe that there is a very strong distinction between them. The Minister says that it is a matter of fair regulation and appropriate licensing, not a question of commercial and non-commercial. But when the Minister starts consulting on orphan works, he will find that that is very much the division. I take enormous comfort from the fact that he has said that if it proves impossible in the course of negotiations to find an appropriate scheme that protects a particular sector-photography is one that I am particularly concerned about in this context-the schemes will not be authorised. All I would suggest to the Minister is that "contemporary photography" is not necessarily the right term because it is very difficult to establish. It may be better to consider "commercial photography" as being a particular sector that might be ripe for exemption.
	I turn to the question of US damages. My view is that in many cases, US law is extra-territorial, so when the consultations are taking place over a scheme that involves commercial photography, it would be extremely wise for people to check the extra-territoriality of that scheme. I also warmly welcome the way in which there will be diligent searches, that there will be sanctions, and that best practice will be founded on certain key work that has already been done.
	I do not understand one comment from the Minister about the effect of the ability of photographers to grant exclusive licences. I do not know whether that is the impact of statute overriding contract. As far as I can see, nothing in the Bill states that exclusivity is overridden and therefore a photographer is not liable in circumstances where, against their own contract, they have been forced to grant a licence over an orphan work. I do not know what the legal situation is, and again, just as in the international context, in the course of the consultations that the department will be carrying out, it also needs to be bottomed out. I say that because over and over again, the whole area of exclusivity is a source of considerable concern to photographers. I refer also to the rights of those who are the subjects of photographs and who have given their image rights for certain purposes and not for others.
	The Minister said that it was unlikely that high-value photographs would become orphan works. I do not know the answer to that; it is pure speculation, if I may say so. The Minister again makes a legal point when he says that he does not believe that the orphan works proposals are in breach of the Berne convention because they do not introduce exceptions to copyright. I hope that that also will be soundly bottomed out when the time comes.
	I welcome the fact that there will be consultations and that the affirmative procedure will be used, although I would have preferred the super-affirmative procedure suggested by the noble Viscount. When the regulations come back to this House they will be extremely carefully scrutinised and I hope that, unlike in certain circumstances, all Benches will feel free to vote as they see fit on the merits of the regulations. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment 167 withdrawn.
	Amendment 168
	 Moved by Lord Lucas
	168: After Clause 42, insert the following new Clause-
	"Protection of the right to link to publicly available information on the internet
	(1) The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 is amended as follows.
	(2) After section 116 insert-
	"116A Protection of the right to link to publicly available information on the internet
	(1) A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is not copyright material.
	(2) A short extract of copyright material used to explain the significance of a URL may be permitted under 'fair use' provisions.
	(3) Any copying of copyright material required to create the link and text referred to in subsections (1) and (2) shall not constitute an infringement of copyright if destroyed immediately afterwards.""

Lord Lucas: My Lords, Amendment 168 suggests that we should take a position on the current dispute between publishers, internet search engines, news aggregators and others in order to defend and make clear where the boundaries of copyright should be in this area.
	Noble Lords may have seen briefing from publishers, newspaper publishers and magazine people on the amendment. They are happy to concede that a link in itself is not a breach of copyright; they also do not seem to quarrel with subsection (3) of the amendment which refers to a process of copying the copyright material in order to make the link and then disposing of it afterwards. What seems to cause a problem for them is the use of a brief extract of the copyright material to describe the link. A typical example of this would be to use Google images to search for images on the web. Google images display a small thumbnail of a picture so that you can flip through many pages while looking for a picture of Lord Lucas, or whatever catches your fancy-I am sure the Minister would never do such a thing-until you find one which is of the right Lord Lucas or is sufficiently horrible to suit your purposes. The newspaper publishers say that you should not be able to do that. Nor should you be allowed to take a short text extract-for example, the headline or half of the first sentence or whatever-sufficient to give an indication of what the link leads to. They claim that is copyright.
	I can see the argument. They are saying that the current fair use, which is limited to things such as reviews and research, does not cover the activities of search engines or news aggregators, and perhaps it does not. That is the reason for the amendment. It is time we debated this. We, as Parliament, ought to draw the boundaries at a fair place for copyright owners and in a proper place for users of the internet. A link should be properly described, and it should be possible to use an equivalent of the right to make short extracts from reviews in order to describe that link. The publishers' associations should get back in their box. I beg to move.

The Earl of Erroll: My Lords, the amendment is essential, particularly in view of Amendment 112 which replaced the original Clause 17. Under that clause, a court can give an injunction where a substantial proportion of the content is made accessible via a specified online location-in other words, it will catch search engines.
	I declare an interest in that I have an association with a search engine called Pingar which aggregates information for business purposes into small reports, with headings, URL and a short description-which is exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is talking about-so that businesses can use that URL to drill down and find possibly copyright material. They would then pay for that material because they would be going through a proper place where they can be charged accordingly. This acts as an advertisement, effectively, for copyright material and I cannot understand why many people would object to it.
	Newspapers will themselves have to be careful. When they quote chunks of a report or other articles-which they do from time to time-that is surely bringing things together, aggregating and introducing copyright material into an article that they are publishing. Therefore, in trying to protect themselves, they will probably make it so that they cannot carry out reporting in the way that they do at the moment.
	As I have always said, it would have been better to tackle this through a rewrite of the Copyright, Designs and Patents 1988, but that is not going to happen in the near future. Whoever becomes the next Government will not tackle the issue because they will probably feel that they have tackled enough of it in the Digital Economy Bill. However, the Bill is not nearly sufficient to begin to touch the surface of what we should be doing in a digital age. Unfortunately I do not think anything else will be done in the near future, in which case the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is absolutely essential; otherwise the search engines and other people will get into a huge amount of difficulty. It will all end up in a very expensive test case and it will be left to judges to sort out the mess. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that this issue is for Parliament to decide; it is not for people to interpret bits of law, particularly bits written in haste without adequate public consultation. If the Minister does not accept the amendment, I hope that he will give a guarantee to bring one back at Third Reading which covers protections for search engines, aggregators and news sites.

Lord Young of Norwood Green: My Lords, the Government agree that copyright should not impair people's ability to link to content which is intended to be publicly available on the internet. However, it is not clear that the activities listed in the amendment would constitute copyright infringement. To the extent that they do constitute infringement, the law already has an exemption for temporary copying which is designed to facilitate browsing the internet and caching. This is covered in Section 28A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. It is unclear how the new provision would work with this existing exemption. It would simply create confusion.
	The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, also referred to search engines and content aggregators. These face additional challenges in linking to web content, in particular, those associated with automatic provision of excerpts. However, it is right that they should face the restriction of not copying a substantial part of a work. Search and aggregation are both important but so, too, are the rights of content creators. Some of these issues are currently the subject of litigation before the Copyright Tribunal in Meltwater v the Newspaper Licensing Agency.
	There was also a question about whether it is possible to use short excerpts of a work without infringing copyright. Ownership of copyright in a work gives the owner exclusive rights to do certain acts in relation to that work. Infringement occurs if a person does any of those acts in relation to the whole or a substantial part of that work without the consent of the right holder. It is possible to use excerpts of a work without the permission of the right holder and without infringing copyright if those excerpts are not substantial, or if one of the statutory exemptions applies.
	Unfortunately, we do not believe that this amendment helps the situation. I have tried to be clear and to give some further assurances in my comments. We will look at the situation, but, at the moment, we feel that this amendment is not the right one. I hope that, in the light of my comments, the noble Lord will feel capable of withdrawing the amendment.

Lord Lucas: My Lords, I am grateful for that reply. It seems to me that the Minister is coming from very much the same position as I am. Doubtless, if we get troubles with the cases in front of the tribunal, I will come back to him to ask if we can put the law back where we thought it was, but, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment 168 withdrawn.
	Amendment 168A
	 Moved by Viscount Bridgeman
	168A: After Clause 42, insert the following new Clause-
	"Effect of electronic rights management information material gathered by an automated process
	(1) The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (the "1988 Act") is amended as follows.
	(2) After section 296ZG (electronic rights management information) insert-
	"296ZH Effect of electronic rights management information material gathered by an automated process
	(1) This section applies where electronic rights management information is associated with a copy of a copyright work, or appears in connection with the communication to the public of a copyright work, and a person (G) in the course of a business makes a copy of, or performs, any other restricted act in relation to that work by an automated process.
	(2) If the conditions in subsection (3) are satisfied, G is deemed to have notice of the contents of that electronic rights management information ("the information") for all purposes relating to his further use of, or access to, the copyright work.
	(3) Those conditions are that-
	(a) it is reasonably practicable for G to instruct the equipment or software which conducts the automated process to recognise, read and interpret the information;
	(b) the meaning of the information may be ascertained from published standards which G knows about or ought to know about; and
	(c) the meaning of the information is sufficiently clear that it is reasonably practicable to instruct G's equipment or software to comply with any restrictions contained in the information regarding the further use of, or access to, the copyright work.
	(4) Where, apart from this section, G would be regarded in law as having notice of any of the information, nothing in this section prevents F from having such notice.
	(5) Subsections (1) to (4), and any other provisions of this Act as it has effect for the purposes of those subsections apply, with any necessary adaptations, to rights in performances, publication rights and database right.
	(6) Section 296ZG(7) (definition of certain expressions) extends to this section.""

Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, my normal courtesies have deserted me. I omitted to thank the Minister for meeting us on Amendments 155A and 155B. Also, in accordance with the provisions of this House, I am required to declare an interest as a non-executive director of the Bridgeman Art Library, which is a photographic archive.
	In Committee, I and other noble Lords tabled substantial amendments on moral rights and metadata. However, in their fact-sheet dated 22 or 23 February, the Government stated that they had not considered the question of moral rights or metadata in the Bill and that accordingly, they had not carried out any detailed research. I must first congratulate the Minister on being so well briefed on these two subjects at this stage, but it does indicate, if that is so, that the consideration of those two subjects is essential, either in the regulations or in other legislation.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and, indeed, the Minister have agreed, metadata is of particular importance to the photographic industry, since it is a valuable tool in ensuring that potential users and licensees are continually made aware of, among other things, the ownership and source of individual works. The obligatory linking of metadata with its relevant material is also fundamental to the creation of an orderly procedure for extended collective licences. Importantly, it also has the potential to play a significant role in inhibiting growth in the number of orphan works, a goal which we all share.
	These two amendments, Amendments 168A and 168B, originally put forward in Committee, are designed to address this fast-moving technology. Amendment 168B, in particular, is designed to reflect the fact that the only way, in my view, to inhibit the illicit separation of metadata from the relevant image is by way of a meaningful financial penalty. This did not find favour with the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, in Committee, but I should be very grateful if the Minister could give us some indication of whether there is some other method of policing available, and whether the meaningful financial penalty can be recognised. This matter will require much further consideration and I would be grateful for an assurance from the Minister that this will be the subject of early consultation, preferably by incorporation into the regulations, or, failing that, by early legislation.
	On the question of moral rights, when I introduced this amendment in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, acknowledged that this is a very difficult subject and he undertook that his officials would look again at the issues raised, I hope not excluding the particular anomaly of creators of journalistic works who are unable, under current legislation, to claim ownership. I make the fundamental point that ECL is not acceptable unless every citizen has the enforceable right to be identified, and stay identified, as the author or performer of their works.
	The Government have been frank about the fact that moral rights have not been addressed in the Bill, and I suggest that this omission has inevitably made the Bill somewhat less effective. It is all the more reason that this important subject is addressed at an early stage, and I would welcome the Minister's assurance on that point as well.
	Finally-your Lordships will be pleased to know that this is the last amendment on Report-I refer to Amendment 168C on moral rights. This amendment was introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and with his agreement, I have brought it back because it contains a fundamental point; that of the unwaivability of moral rights. This is applicable in every other country in the European Union, with the exception of the United Kingdom and Ireland, and it is designed, again, to protect the small photographer. We must envisage scenes where a substantial user with substantial resources will say to the owner of the copyright, "Leave it to us; we will look after all the arrangements, all your finances, but leave it to us". The assurance that that right cannot be waived, whatever the transaction between the two parties, will be, in my view, a considerable reassurance to the photographic industry in particular. That is all I wish to say on that provision. I beg to move.

Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, I support the amendments in the names of the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, and myself. These are clearly of fundamental importance and I would say that there should be no orphan works scheme which applies to commercial photographers unless provisions of this kind are enacted-I feel as strongly as that both about the metadata provisions and the moral rights aspect. We need to ensure that creators can defend their work from inappropriate use and distortion, that works are clearly attributed and that further works are not orphaned. That is a very important point in view of the claim that thousands of works are being created orphans each week. This is fundamental to the concerns of the photographers and the photographic libraries.

Lord De Mauley: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Bridgeman for returning to this important issue again. Our Committee discussions were cut rather short on these sorts of matters because of time constraints and, judging by the sudden increase in the number of noble Lords in the Chamber-which I regret, I fear, has little to do with the Bill-something similar might happen now if I do not keep my remarks brief. We entirely agree with my noble friend that the issues he raises need to be resolved. For example, as we have heard, it is far too easy for photographs to be stripped of identifying information and copied to many different users, denying owners any chance of controlling or benefiting from the use of their work.
	I understand that the Government are intending to start the pre-legislative process to address these problems, and on these Benches, we will be holding a review of copyright law in view of issues raised by the internet. I look forward to hearing more from the Minister about the Government's intentions in this area.

Lord Lucas: My Lords, this is a desirable direction to go in, and I hope that the Government will treat it with sympathy.

Lord Young of Norwood Green: My Lords, the Government are sympathetic to Amendment 168A, which is to allow rights holders to control the terms of use of copyright works by, for example, web search providers. However, it is not clear that the amendment is needed: rights holders can already set these terms and infringement of their copyright is actionable in the courts.
	There are also risks of adverse consequences to legitimate web search and other valued services. It would be wrong to legislate without having examined the full consequences of action. For example, I imagine some noble Lords might wish to see provisions for sanctions against any false claim of copyright through electronic rights management information or wilful failure to develop the capacity for machine-reading of electronic rights management information. Given that neither the need for, nor the effects of this amendment are clearly established, I urge the noble Viscount to withdraw the amendment.
	On Amendment 168B, the issue of removal or alteration of metadata is of great concern to many creators, for example, photographers. It is already the case that alteration of electronic rights management information, which may include metadata, is actionable in the same way as copyright infringement. Amendment 168B seeks to establish sanctions against persons who provide products or services that are designed for unauthorised metadata removal or editing.
	In principle, the Government would support changes that helped to tackle unauthorised tampering with metadata, and I appreciate the effort that has gone into improving this amendment over its predecessor from Committee stage, Amendment 292A. However, it is unclear what "authorisation" means in this context. As a consequence, the amendment might call into question the legality of supplying assistance currently used by rights holders to edit their own metadata. That could force changes to existing legitimate products, with concomitant expense and potentially a hiatus in availability.
	The current law concentrates on the act of unauthorised tampering with electronic metadata rather than the means of doing so. The Government's view is that this remains the most viable route of dealing with the real problem with metadata tampering that so concerns noble Lords. On that basis, I urge noble Lords not to move the amendment.
	With regard to Amendments 168C and 168D, the Government remain alive to the concerns of many creators over the issue of moral rights. We understand fully that this is a concern for photographers in particular. We are continuing to look at this issue, and will do so in conjunction with the photographic community. For example, the Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property Policy has organised a workshop for that very purpose on 23 March, in which many stakeholders, including the Royal Photographic Society and the Association of Photographers, will be participating. The objective of this workshop is to determine where the UK sits in international perspectives and what further research is required. We hope that it will help to guide further work in this area.
	Amendment 168C would prevent the waiver of moral rights. There are real concerns about the impact of this in practice. Leaving aside the question of whether it is right to restrict individuals' freedom in this way, we would need to consider what adverse consequences there would be, including for creators of some works.
	Amendment 168D would mean that the right to be identified as the author or director of a copyright work or as a performer applied automatically. It would also restrict and remove exceptions to this right. The Government do not want to introduce such fundamental changes without fully consulting on and considering the consequences.
	We are committed to looking at these issues, but they are too complex to resolve with these amendments today. Although in some cases we support the spirit and principle, we do not believe that the amendments are right. There is a good deal of complexity in these areas. We have given a lot of assurances of consultation and we have brought up examples of that during the comments that I have just made. I hope, therefore, in the light of my comments and assurances, that the noble Viscount will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I am grateful that the Minister has treated these amendments as probing, which indeed they are. My only comment is that the ingenuity of the electronics and software industry in circumventing regulations designed to inhibit, for instance, the separation of metadata, should never be underestimated. This is a huge challenge. I am grateful, though, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
	Amendment 168A withdrawn.
	Amendments 168B to 168D not moved.
	Schedule 2 : Licensing of copyright and performers' property rights
	Amendments 169 to 172
	 Moved by Lord Young of Norwood Green
	169: Schedule 2, page 60, line 30, leave out "may by regulations require a licensing body" and insert-
	"(a) must, in the case of a licensing body or other person authorised under section 116A or 116B, and
	(b) may, in the case of any licensing body that appears to the Secretary of State not to have a system of self-regulation protecting the interests of copyright owners, licensees, prospective licensees or the public,
	require the licensing body or other person"
	170: Schedule 2, page 60, leave out lines 33 to 38
	171: Schedule 2, page 61, line 1, at end insert "or other person"
	172: Schedule 2, page 61, line 5, at end insert "or other person"
	Amendments 169 to 172 agreed.
	Amendment 172A not moved.
	Amendments 173 to 177
	 Moved by Lord Young of Norwood Green
	173: Schedule 2, page 61, leave out lines 6 to 13
	174: Schedule 2, page 61, line 15, leave out "such provision" and insert "provision under paragraph 1"
	175: Schedule 2, page 61, line 16, at end insert "or other person"
	176: Schedule 2, page 61, line 17, leave out "sub-paragraph (1)(b)" and insert "paragraph 1(1)(b)"
	177: Schedule 2, page 61, line 19, at end insert-
	"2A (1) Regulations under paragraph 1 must provide for a code applying to a licensing body to include provision relating to these matters-
	(a) obligations of the body to its members;
	(b) where the body is authorised under section 116B, obligations of the body to owners of copyright in works subject to the authorisation who are not members;
	(c) accounting arrangements in relation to royalties or other sums paid in respect of a licence;
	(d) obligations of the body to licensees;
	(e) control by the body of administration and marketing carried out by it or on its behalf;
	(f) the handling of complaints against the body, including the appointment of a person to represent the interests of complainants;
	(g) provision of information by the body, and other matters relating to transparency in relation to activities of the body;
	(h) the making of reports by the body to the Secretary of State.
	(2) Regulations under paragraph 1 must provide for a code to include, in relation to works to which an authorisation under section 116A or 116B applies that are registered as orphan works, provision relating to these matters-
	(a) accounting arrangements in relation to royalties or other sums paid in respect of a licence;
	(b) calculation of payments to copyright owners;
	(c) arrangements for holding sums for copyright owners;
	(d) provision of information by the authorised person."
	Amendments 173 to 177 agreed.
	Amendment 177A not moved.
	Amendments 178 to 190
	 Moved by Lord Young of Norwood Green
	178: Schedule 2, page 61, line 27, after "116B," insert-
	"(ba) any of subsections (4) to (6) of section 116CB,"
	179: Schedule 2, page 62, line 19, at end insert-
	"(1A) Where the missing rights owner is not the sole owner of the rights concerned, an authorisation does not affect the need for consent from any other owner."
	180: Schedule 2, page 62, line 23, leave out "may" and insert "must"
	181: Schedule 2, page 62, line 32, leave out "an orphan rights register (see paragraph 1C)" and insert "a register kept in accordance with paragraph 1CB(1)."
	182: Schedule 2, page 63, line 8, leave out from beginning to end of line 42 on page 64 and insert-
	"1CA (1) A right is an orphan right if a person-
	(a) has carried out in accordance with regulations a diligent search to find or, if necessary, to identify and find, the owner of, or of an interest in, a performer's property rights, and
	(b) has published the notice required by this paragraph,
	but has not found the owner.
	(2) References to the missing rights owner in relation to orphan rights are references to that owner.
	(3) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (1CA (1)(a) the person carrying out the search must in particular-
	(a) make such use as is reasonable of sources of information, including sources within sub-paragraph (4), relating to the apparent country of origin of the recording concerned, and
	(b) have regard to any presumptions under section 105 that would apply in relation to the recording in any proceedings.
	(4) The sources referred to in sub-paragraph (3)(a) are-
	(a) licensing bodies;
	(b) associations of publishers or authors;
	(c) systems for identifying works of the type concerned;
	(d) published library catalogues and indexes;
	(e) public databases, including public records that may indicate successors in title.
	(5) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (3)(b) a recording's apparent country of origin is the country which the person carrying out the search reasonably believes is most likely to be-
	(a) the country of the recording's first publication, or
	(b) if the recording has not been published, the country with which its making is most closely connected.
	(6) The notice required by sub-paragraph (1)(b) is notice of the proposal to enter the interest concerned in a register kept in accordance with paragraph 1CB(1), published in a way designed to bring the proposal to the attention of the copyright owner.
	(7) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend any of the preceding provisions of this section.
	1CB (1) Regulations made by the Secretary of State must provide for an authorisation under paragraph 1A or 1B to have effect in respect of an interest of a missing rights owner only if the interest is entered in a register kept by the authorised person (an "orphan rights register").
	(2) The regulations must-
	(a) specify the form of an orphan rights register and how it is to be kept, and
	(b) provide for an orphan rights register to be made available to the public.
	(3) An entry in an orphan rights register must include a sufficient record of the steps taken for the purposes of paragraph 1CA(1)(a) and (b).
	(4) An authorised person must not enter an interest in an orphan rights register unless the authorised person-
	(a) has taken the steps referred to in paragraph 1CA(1)(a) and (b) and has not found the owner of the interest, or
	(b) has reasonable grounds for believing that another person has taken those steps and that the owner of the interest has not been found.
	(5) If an interest is entered in an authorised person's orphan rights register and the authorised person finds the owner of the interest, the authorised person must remove the entry.
	(6) If in relation to an interest entered in an authorised person's orphan rights register, the authorised person-
	(a) is aware that any of the steps referred to in paragraph 1CA(1)(a) and (b) was not taken, or
	(b) is aware of information that makes it no longer reasonable to rely on the steps taken,
	the authorised person must as soon as possible take those steps or remove the entry.
	(7) Where an interest is entered in an orphan rights register, regulations under paragraph 1A or 1B may provide for an authorisation under that paragraph to have effect in respect of that interest despite a failure to take steps referred to in paragraph 1CA(1)(a) or (b) or to comply with any of sub-paragraphs (4) to (6).
	(8) But a failure by an authorised person to comply with any of sub-paragraphs (4) to (6) is actionable as a breach of statutory duty owed to the owner of the interest concerned (and see paragraph 3 of Schedule A1 as it applies by virtue of paragraph 1D).
	(9) Any guidance issued by the Secretary of State must be taken into account in deciding whether a person has taken the steps referred to in paragraph 1CA(1)(a) and (b) or has complied with sub-paragraph (6).
	(10) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend any of the preceding provisions of this section."
	183: Schedule 2, page 64, line 43, leave out "and 1B" and insert "to 1CB"
	184: Schedule 2, page 64, line 44, leave out "and 116B" and insert "to 116CB-
	(a) "
	185: Schedule 2, page 64, line 46, after "rights" insert ", and
	(b) as if the reference in paragraph 3(1)(ba) to section 116CB(4) to (6) were a reference to paragraph 1CB(4) to (6);"
	186: Schedule 2, page 65, line 1, leave out "1C" and insert "1CB"
	187: Schedule 2, page 65, line 9, at end insert-
	"( ) Before making provision as to requirements for a person's becoming or remaining authorised under paragraph 1A or 1B, the Secretary of State must consult the persons the Secretary of State thinks likely to be affected (or persons who represent such persons) and such other persons as the Secretary of State thinks fit."
	188: Schedule 2, page 65, line 10, leave out "1C" and insert "1CB"
	189: Schedule 2, page 65, line 19, leave out "1C" and insert "1CB"
	190: Schedule 2, page 65, line 20, leave out "paragraph 1C or another" and insert "any"
	Amendments 178 to 190 agreed.
	Clause 48 : Commencement
	Amendment 190A
	 Moved by Lord Young of Norwood Green
	190A: Clause 48, page 55, line 43, leave out "40(1) to" and insert "40(2), (3), (4) and"
	Amendment 190A agreed.
	Amendment 191 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.

Jon Venables
	 — 
	Statement

Lord Bach: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will repeat an Answer given by my right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice to an Urgent Question asked in another place earlier today.
	"Mr Speaker, I am grateful for this opportunity to explain to the House the situation relating to Jon Venables. The background is this. James Bulger, then aged two and a half, was in 1993 the victim of a most horrific murder. Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, both then aged 10, were convicted of James's murder at a trial at Preston Crown Court, in November 1993. They were given the mandatory sentence for murder by juveniles-namely, detention at Her Majesty's pleasure.
	The minimum tariff was originally set by the trial judge at eight years. This was increased to 10 by the then Lord Chief Justice, the late Lord Taylor, and then to 15 by the Home Secretary of the day, the right honourable and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe. Following a judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in December 1999, the final decision on tariff setting was transferred to the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, who set a tariff of seven years and eight months.
	Venables and Thompson were granted new identities, which were and remain protected by an injunction. They were released by the Parole Board on a life licence in June 2001. Various stringent conditions were attached, and they have been under probation supervision.
	During the week beginning 22 February this year, officials in my department learnt of a compromise of Venables's new identity. Subsequently, information came to light that he may have committed a serious breach of his licence conditions. He was recalled to custody that day and has since remained in prison. A Parole Board hearing will be held as soon as practicable.
	Once we had established as much information as we could, we informed the bereaved parents of James Bulger of the recall, under the statutory victim contact scheme. My department later issued a brief statement to the press regarding Venables's recall to custody.
	As the House is aware, we have not provided full details about this case beyond confirming that Venables faces extremely serious allegations. This is because the police and the Director of Public Prosecutions have advised that a premature disclosure of information could undermine the integrity of the criminal justice process, including the continuing investigation and the potential for a prosecution in the future.
	I fully understand the concern of James Bulger's parents and the wider public about this case and, indeed, the frustration voiced by James's mother, Mrs Fergus, that insufficient information has been provided to her. As I indicated earlier today, I have been giving further active consideration as to whether it would be appropriate to provide more information, but I have concluded that this would not presently be in the interests of justice.
	It is critical that, if charges do follow, it is possible to hold a fair trial-fair for the defence and fair for the prosecution. As I said on Saturday morning, our motivation is solely to ensure that extremely serious allegations are properly investigated and that justice is done. No one in this country would want anything other.
	Let me just say this. If any offender on a life licence is charged with a serious further offence, a thorough review of the supervision must be carried out. In any event, I will give the House further information as soon as I can".
	That concludes the Justice Secretary's Answer.

Lord Henley: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Answer given in another place by the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. This is a sorry saga. I am sure that most of us would agree that it would have been better if it had not been necessary for the Lord Chancellor to have been called to make such a statement, but we are where we are. Jon Venables has been recalled and there has been considerable speculation in the media about why.
	I am sorry to say that Ministers have made conflicting comments, with the Home Secretary saying last Wednesday, I think, that the public had the right to know and the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State saying-more correctly, dare I say?-the opposite. Therefore, it is right that the Minister and the Secretary of State should come to both Houses to explain just what the position is. We think it necessary that they set out what the law is and what the limits are as to what can be disclosed at present without prejudicing any prosecution that may or may not happen in the future.
	I have several questions to put to the Minister. First, can he explain what licence conditions were placed on Jon Venables? Will he expand on the commitment that he made as to a further report to the House as soon as possible? Will that include a commitment to comment on the action that the probation service has taken in response to every reported breach of licence by Jon Venables since his release, so that the public can be given the assurance that there was proper supervision? As the Minister is aware, there has been considerable public disquiet on this matter. Can he give an assurance that the grounds for not saying any more at this stage constitute the very practical need to avoid identifying Jon Venables-we all think that that is the right approach, given the new identity that has been established over the years and the possible requirement of a trial process-rather than any broader, creeping advance of privacy rights for criminals at the expense of public transparency? I would be grateful if the Minister could respond to those points in due course.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, we on these Benches wholly support the stance that the Government have taken on this matter. The murder in Liverpool 17 years ago was an horrific event, which affected everybody in this country and led to a change of people's attitude towards the criminal justice system. However, we are in a very different situation and it is right that the Government should not give further information that might reveal the current identity of Jon Venables.
	The reasons why this stance is taken were expressed by the then Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips, in the Hamza case. He said:
	"The risk that members of a jury may be affected by prejudice is one that cannot wholly be eliminated. Any member may bring personal prejudices to the jury room and equally there will be a risk that a jury may disregard the directions of the judge when they consider that they are contrary to what justice requires. Our legal principles are designed to reduce such risks to the minimum, but they cannot obviate them altogether ... Prejudicial publicity renders more difficult the task of the court, that is of the judge and jury together, in trying the case fairly. Our laws of contempt of court are designed to prevent the media from interfering with the due process of justice by making it more difficult to conduct a fair trial".
	That principle is wholly applicable in the present circumstances.
	It was with great surprise that I saw the front-page headlines of a national newspaper today. It would surely amount to a contempt of court under Section 1 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 if Jon Venables has been arrested or even if a warrant for his arrest has been issued. Strict liability contempt applies to newspapers and to legal proceedings that are active, as they would be in the circumstances that I have outlined, at the time of the publication. This may render the publication in contempt, regardless of any intent to interfere with the course of justice in the proceedings. In due course, if Jon Venables under his new identity is brought to trial and convicted, the newspapers will have all the publicity that they may care to disperse to the people of this country and can make all the comments that they wish-but at that time only. Anything that might affect the fairness of any trial, if one should happen, is to be completely deplored.

Lord Bach: My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for what they have said and I will do my best briefly to answer the questions. I do not believe that there is any conflict between what the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary have said. Both are in the same place, as the Justice Secretary said in another place today. In time, of course, it is to be hoped that more details can be disclosed. Both right honourable gentlemen have an interest in there being a fair investigation and a fair trial, if that is what it comes to.
	The noble Lord, Lord Henley, asked about licence conditions. There were standard licence conditions on both Thompson and Venables, plus some specific conditions particular to this case. Two examples of the specific conditions that applied in both of the cases are no contact of each with the other and exclusion from Merseyside without permission. As I said, where an offender under probation supervision is charged with a serious further offence, a mandatory review of supervision is triggered, but I have to remind the House that to date no charges have been brought.
	I was asked whether our reluctance to say more is to do with some extension of the privacy rights of the accused. No, that is not the position at all. What we are doing, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, has so eloquently said, is protecting our criminal justice system, both at the investigation stage and particularly at any possible trial stage later. I am particularly grateful to him for his wholehearted support for the Government's stance up to now. I am also grateful to him, as the House will be, for reminding us what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips, so wisely said in the Hamza case.

Lord Lloyd of Berwick: My Lords, I must declare a not directly relevant interest, as having been one of the Law Lords who took part in the decision of the House of Lords in R v Home Secretary ex parte Venables in January 1997, in which it was held that the decision of the Home Secretary to increase the tariff from 10 to 15 years should be quashed as a decision that he had no power to take. That is not of any direct relevance in this case, but I thought that I should mention it.
	What is of great relevance, it seems to me, is the decision of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, as President of the Family Division in 2001. I see her in her place and no doubt she will tell your Lordships, more accurately than I can, what she said. It was a decision in which Venables and Thompson were the claimants against News Group Newspapers after the tariff had expired. In that case, the hearing lasted some five days and the noble and learned Baroness went into the matter in great detail. She granted a permanent injunction to the claimants in that case, to prevent the defendants from disclosing any information that might lead to the discovery of the new identities that Venables and Thompson had been granted. She said that she was doing this because she held that, in the very exceptional circumstances of the case, the rights of confidence, which she found established in that case, took precedence over the rights of the press to publish. Perhaps even more relevantly, she said:
	"If their new identities were discovered, I am satisfied that neither of them would have any chance of a normal life and that there is a real and strong possibility that their lives would be at risk".
	Does the Minister see any reason to disagree with that view or to say that the circumstances that applied then are not equally applicable now? Of course, if a trial is to take place, other considerations may arise, but for the moment, at any rate, that must be the right solution. Does the Minister agree?

Lord Bach: I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord. We agree absolutely. That is the reason for the way in which we have approached the matter until this stage. As the House will know, it is very rare under our system for new identities to be ordered by the court. They are not put into effect unless the situation demands it. The answer to the noble and learned Lord's question is yes.

Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords-

Lord Borrie: My Lords-

Lord Tunnicliffe: My Lords, can we maintain the convention of Question Time and go around the House?

Lord Borrie: My Lords, I apologise to the noble and learned Baroness, who will be able to speak in a moment. My question is about the statement within the Lord Chancellor's Statement, which my noble friend has kindly repeated. He said:
	"Once we had established as much information as we could, we informed the bereaved parents of James Bulger of the recall, under the statutory victim contact scheme. My department later issued a brief statement to the press regarding Venables' recall to custody".
	It seems that we are in the present difficulty, where there is a strong demand not just from those related to the victim but more generally, because there was a press statement in late February and this information was given to the bereaved parents. That has inevitably led to further requests and demands for fuller statements, and a great reluctance to accept a perfectly legitimate point made by the Government and the Benches opposite: to give more information at this stage may well prejudice a fair trial of any charges that may be brought in due course against Jon Venables. In view of the points that I have just made, can the Minister explain why they issued a press statement about taking Jon Venables back into custody? Under the victim contact scheme, which is said to be statutory, is it an absolute requirement that bereaved parents are informed of the recall? Inevitably, they wish to speak to the press and pursue the matter further, and we are in the difficulty that we have at the moment, whereby nobody will be satisfied.

Lord Bach: I am grateful to my noble friend. The answer to his question is, yes, I understand that we are bound to inform bereaved parents of the recall under the statutory victim contact scheme. That is why it was done. If I am wrong, I will come back to the House.
	The initial short statement was made on a reactive basis. Once the press had become aware of the recall, the story would be published and it was thought best to confirm the recall. These are not easy decisions, but will the House consider what the position would have been if there had been total silence from the Government at that stage? A difficult position would have become worse.

Baroness Butler-Sloss: My Lords, I declare an interest as the judge who made the order for the anonymity of these boys. I respectfully agree with everything that the Government have done so far. I have a rather different question. This young man may or may not be tried; he may or may not have committed offences. There is at least the possibility that he has committed no offence. Consequently, he may, therefore, be allowed again to be out on licence. I hope the Government will take carefully into account the enormous importance of protecting his anonymity now and if he is released. Those who wanted to kill him in 2001 are likely to be out there now.

Lord Bach: The Government are extremely grateful to the noble and learned Baroness for her support for the way in which we have responded up to this stage. I thank her for that. At some stage this matter will, as the Statement said, come before the Parole Board. Of course, I answer her question in the affirmative. We agree completely with the noble and learned Baroness that Venables should retain his anonymity as much now as he did then.

Lord Tebbit: My Lords, I have a layman's question in the midst of all these experts. Is it not the case that, under normal circumstances, if a man is accused of a serious crime and goes to trial, the greatest precautions would be taken to avoid the jury becoming aware of his previous record of convictions for serious crime?

Lord Bach: Yes, of course. It is one of the foundations of our criminal and legal system that, except in exceptional cases, you start from the position that the jury knows nothing about a defendant's previous offences.

Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, when James Bulger was murdered in the Strand in Bootle in 1993, I was a Member of Parliament for Liverpool. I was struck at the time by the fortitude and dignity with which James's mother, Denise Bulger-now Denise Fergus-bore that terrible, tragic loss. As we talk-as we do in your Lordships' House this afternoon-about the importance of protecting our criminal justice system and the identity of both Venables and Thompson, can we reflect for a moment on the pain that has been experienced by that mother in her loss, and reflect on the sensitivity which the Lord Chancellor, the Justice Secretary, has rightly shown in saying that he would like at least to meet her to discuss what can be discussed? Can the Minister tell us a little more about when such a meeting might take place?

Lord Bach: I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention. He is right. The loss that this lady and James Bulger's father have suffered, and will suffer for the rest of their lives, should never be forgotten. It is important to remember that at this time. My right honourable friend hopes to be able to meet Mrs Fergus in the course of this week but I cannot give any more details. It may not be able to happen. I do not know. I will just praise Mrs Fergus. She said in a television interview this morning that she certainly did not want any trial of Venables-if there were to be one-to be jeopardised by excessive publicity at this stage.

Lord Elystan-Morgan: Many noble Lords have made the proper point that excessive publicity could jeopardise the validity of a trial, if such a trial is necessary. Would it not be ironic if the shrill and hysterical cries of tabloid editors brought this about? Would it not be proper for them to exercise a measure of self-denying ordinance in this matter? Further to that, does the Minister agree that there is a robustness and toughness in our jury system that, over the centuries, has allowed juries, somehow or other, to isolate and insulate themselves from even passionately held communal feelings; and that they have shown themselves able, in a thoroughly dispassionate and objective way, to bring about decisions that are based only on the evidence that has been tendered to them?

Lord Bach: I agree with the noble Lord. It would indeed be ironic. That is why my right honourable friend's Statement refers to fairness for the prosecution as well as for the defence. That is the right way to look at the fairness of a trial. It is also important to remember investigations that may be taking place at present when one considers how much should be said or not said. The noble Lord is exactly right about the jury system, too.

Lord Pannick: My Lords, I, too, declare an interest in that I acted for the Home Secretary in the proceedings brought by Jon Venables relating to the tariff in the English courts, including before the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, and then in the European Court of Human Rights.
	The Minister has carefully and fully explained that the limited information being published at the moment is due to the need to protect a fair trial if criminal charges were to be brought. I fully support what the Minister has said in relation to that matter. However, does he accept that different considerations would inevitably arise about what should be published if-I emphasise "if"-criminal proceedings were to be brought against Jon Venables? Does he also accept that different considerations would arise about what the public should be told if no criminal charges were to be brought, a decision were to be taken to that effect, and yet there were found to have been serious breaches of the conditions under which he was released from detention?

Lord Bach: I am grateful to the noble Lord who has great experience in this field. All I can say to him in reply is that we believe we have taken the right attitude towards this matter given the circumstances up to this point. We will have to try to do as well if the situation changes.

Children, Schools and Families Bill

Main Bill Page
	Copy of the Bill
	Explanatory Notes

Second Reading

Moved By Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
	That the Bill be read a second time.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, I beg to move that the Children, Schools and Families Bill be now read a second time.
	This Bill establishes what children and their families have a right to expect from our country's schools system. For the first time we are committing to a series of specific guarantees for parents and pupils, and providing a means of redress if expectations are not met. It may be helpful for noble Lords if I give some concrete examples of the kinds of things that would come under these guarantees.
	From September, every pupil in year seven and beyond will have a personal tutor who will know the pupil well, have an overview of his or her progress, and help them get access to further help. Also from September, all key stage 2 pupils who are below level 2, and not on course to make two levels of progress, will receive a reasonable offer of one-to-one tuition. All looked-after children are entitled to this guarantee. From September 2011, where a child is not on track to achieve level 2 by the end of key stage 1, the school will have to inform parents of what additional support it will provide, including one-to-one and small group tuition; and how they, as parents, can help their child.
	Pupils and their parents will be able to hold schools and local authorities to account if they are not delivering on those or any other guarantees. For the small number of complaints that cannot be resolved at school level, parents and pupils will be able to take matters further. Complaints in maintained schools will be handled in line with the principles of the Local Government Ombudsman's Parental Complaints Service; the Young People's Learning Agency will be the route of redress for pupils in academies and their parents. The pupil and parent guarantees will come into operation nationally in September 2011, at the same time as the Parental Complaints Service.
	It is only because we have achieved so much over the past decade that we are now in a position to make guarantees about the kind of provision children and their parents can expect. This Government came to power on the promise that education would be at the heart of our administration and our ambitions for the people of this country. We were very clear that driving up standards in schools and across the education system was the best way of giving young people a stake in the future.
	Over the 13 years since then, I believe we have consistently maintained that focus, keeping that ambition in view despite the numerous other pressures and priorities of government. We have consistently acted to improve standards in education and to give children and young people the very best start in life. The result is that this country now has an education system of which we can be proud. Thanks to the hard work of teachers and others in our schools, we now have the highest ever standards of education. The Children's Plan is delivering real change for children and their families in every part of the country, on a daily basis. Sure Start children's centres are an established part of every local neighbourhood, providing parents with the advice and services they need. The school estate-both primary and secondary-is being refurbished and rebuilt following the biggest injection of capital investment for a generation.
	These are all significant improvements of which we should be, and are, rightfully proud. This sustainable change has been brought about only through our consistent policy of investment and reform. We have a proud record of improving standards in our schools. Since 1997, every single school has benefited from increased capital investment. There are now 4,000 new, rebuilt or significantly refurbished schools. The average salary for primary and secondary school teachers has increased by more than £11,000 over the past 13 years. We now have more than 40,000 more teachers in schools compared with 1997, backed up by more than 20,000 support staff, whose training and hard work allow teachers to get on with their core activity.
	This Bill will build on that achievement and help deliver a world-class 21st century schooling system that allows every child and young person, whatever their interests and abilities, to reach their full potential. Measures in the Bill encourage schools to work more closely in partnership with other schools and the wider community. The Bill allows for the introduction of a new school report card, enabling parents to make meaningful choices for their children's futures. In addition, we will expect schools to consider the services and facilities they offer to their local communities. To support them in this, we are giving them greater flexibility in how they spend their budgets.
	A new licence to practise for teachers will further drive up standards in the classroom, as well as helping to increase the status of the teaching workforce. This will create a new learning culture among staff in every school, and lead to improved teaching quality across the board. It will also have the equally valuable effect of demonstrating to parents that high-quality teaching standards are being maintained. We are bringing forward reforms to the school curriculum that will ensure children and young people are equipped with the skills and knowledge they, and their future employers, require. The Bill introduces the primary curriculum recommended by Sir Jim Rose, allowing schools greater flexibility to tailor teaching to the needs and interests of their children, while continuing to focus on basic literacy, numeracy and ICT. These reforms are in line with changes called for by teachers and other education professionals.
	The Bill also puts personal, social, health and economic education on a statutory footing for the first time. I am sure that many of your Lordships will welcome this-many have already-recognising the important role that PSHE has to play in equipping young people with the knowledge, understanding and practical skills they need to live healthy, safe and fulfilled lives. I know that there has been a significant amount of misinformation and comment about the degree of discretion that faith schools will be allowed in the teaching of sex and relationships education. I can be absolutely clear that faith schools will not be able to opt out of providing sex and relationships education, and that they will have to deliver the programme of study for this subject in accordance with the principles set out in the Bill, like every other school. Those principles are very important.
	The Bill contains measures for the registration and monitoring of home-educated children. Local authorities are required to take action where they believe that a child is not receiving a suitable education. However, they cannot fulfil their responsibilities if they do not know that a child in their area is being home educated, or where they have no means of establishing that the child is receiving an education. Registration and monitoring will not be onerous where home educators are doing a good job, but we want to give local authorities the tools they need to tackle the very small number of cases where the education provided is not satisfactory.
	To support the implementation of the recommendations made by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, on the safeguarding of children, new provisions will be introduced to ensure effective information-sharing. We will also strengthen the evaluation of serious case reviews further to improve safeguarding arrangements. Part 2 of the Bill contains provisions to open up proceedings in the family courts in order to increase transparency while ensuring that the protection and welfare of children is maintained. We remain committed to ensuring the privacy of children and families involved in court proceedings but there is widespread recognition that the family justice system needs to become more accountable to the public it serves.
	Through this Bill we are also introducing three small but very important changes that will significantly improve services and, therefore, life chances for vulnerable children. In future Ofsted school inspection will report explicitly on the provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities. Inspectors are already undergoing training in this area. Parents will be given a new right to appeal if their child's statement is not amended during the annual review processes. This was a recommendation from Brian Lamb's widely respected SEN inquiry which we believe will make a significant difference to parents. We are also ensuring that all children who are not in school but in alternative provision-whether on health grounds or for other reasons-receive full-time education. This extension of the current local authority duty will mean that some of our most vulnerable children always have access to full-time education, unless it is not in their best interests.
	The Children, Schools and Families Bill is for the future of our country. It builds on improvements made over the past 13 years, underpinned by record levels of funding in our schools and children's services. It builds on a decade of raising standards of pupil achievement, increased investment in buildings and the workforce, and the development of one of the most robust children's safeguarding systems in the world. The provisions in this Bill are further proof of our steadfast commitment to give every child and every family the opportunities and support they need, both now and in years to come. I can tell by looking at the list of speakers that we are in for a tremendous debate on the principles of this Bill, so without further ado, I beg to move.

Baroness Verma: My Lords, it seems barely a moment since I stood up to greet the 262-clause Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill, which is now an Act. We are here presented with yet another Bill-this time a mere 51 clauses long. It seems that the Government, when they turn to the issue of education, simply cannot resist the urge to bombard the sector with more and more legislation. Year after year we go through more of these Bills and each time the issues become more disparate and the names longer. We have a new acronym here which does not roll as smoothly off the tongue as the ASCL Bill but will no doubt come into regular use as we progress through the various stages. From each of these Bills stem reams and reams of regulations, codes of practice and guidance. Does the Minister concede that the Government are making it incredibly difficult for teachers and head teachers to get on with their main priority, namely educating, because they are being swamped in bureaucracy?
	As I mentioned in last Thursday's debate in your Lordships' House on teaching excellence, led by my noble friend Lady Shephard, the Department for Children, Schools and Families issues nearly 4,000 pages of guidance to schools every year. This new Bill will give teachers even more reading material to occupy their already busy timetables. We have had pages and pages of law and screeds of guidance and yet we are still in a position where 40 per cent of pupils leaving primary school are unable to read, write and add up properly. Figures from 2009 show that half of all pupils in this country did not get five good GCSEs, including English and Maths, and that every day 344 children are suspended from school for assaulting other children. Should the Government not resist the knee-jerk reaction to pass yet another Bill enshrining bureaucracy and targets and instead turn to the solutions which will really address the problems of poor standards in education and school reform?
	Instead, we see a Bill where the first three clauses establish pupil-parent guarantees. We accept that the aspirations being framed here have good intentions at their heart. Who could object, for example, to a law stating that children should go to schools,
	"where there is good behaviour, strong discipline, order and safety"?
	However, we on these Benches are unclear as to why it is necessary to enshrine these already existing entitlements in legislation. This is a legalistic and bureaucratic approach to the problem and does nothing to address the really important questions of how to ensure that pupils can go to a school where there is good behaviour, strong discipline, order and safety.
	There is a gaping hole in policy here which cannot be countered with a guarantee. In another place, Clause 1(8) was introduced to help shore up the fact that this clause would open up the flood gates for increased litigation against schools. We on these Benches would be grateful for this concession. It would be unthinkable for schools to be open to this new layer of litigation. What precise benefits are the Government hoping to gain from a clause which enshrines existing rights and is, thankfully, not legally enforceable?
	Further bureaucracy can be seen in the clauses relating to home-school contracts. As noble Lords will be aware, we on these Benches have long called for home-school contracts to be strengthened. The Government, however, have decided that this should mean individual agreements-a decision which the Association of School and College Leaders has branded "impractical" because of the bureaucracy which,
	"will consume a great deal of school resources".
	We welcome the principle that the Government are trying to demonstrate of taking parental views into account. However, we on these Benches feel that the clauses on parental satisfaction surveys and report cards miss the point. In the case of parental satisfaction surveys, can the Minister indicate what perceived costs to local authorities she envisages? Who will the evaluators be and what will that cost? How will outcomes be publicised, where will information be made available and how much that will cost? The parental satisfaction surveys have the potential to be useful but instead they create more bureaucracy with excessive planning, consultation and referral, proposing very little in the way of real action. Surely better ways of engaging with parents must be explored. The report cards may actually undermine the Government's efforts and reduce accountability because it is unclear what specific factors make up the grade and what weighting will be given to each one. How can they be compared? The overall grade will reveal very little about the school. We on these Benches believe instead in reformed league tables and that we should publish as much factual and objective information as is available about a school. It should not be hidden under an overall grade.
	I doubt I am alone when I say that my desk is stacked high with letters about this Bill, a large proportion of which are about Clause 26. Is the Minister surprised that this is the case? Clause 26 infringes the basic right of parents to decide what is in the best interests of their child. These parents have done no wrong and committed no crime, yet the law appears to suggest that children are inherently at a greater risk of danger if they are home-educated, that they are less safe with their own parents and so must be the subject of scrutiny by the state. Of course the current system has room for improvement but we believe that changes must be made sensibly and with parents' involvement, not in a manner which would steamroller over the rights of parents to make decisions about what is in the interests of their own children.
	In the previous Bill the Government showed their lack of trust in teachers and head teachers. In this Bill that they show they do not trust parents. We all want to ensure that vulnerable children are protected. There is a whole range of instruments already in place for that, but you cannot equip with one hand and take away with another. I have given a very negative picture of our views on this Bill so far. There are, of course, parts of the Bill to which we do not object. We do not object, for example, to the provisions whereby Ofsted inspections report on how well the needs of children with special educational needs are being met in mainstream schools, or the provision of a new right of appeal against an unamended SEN statement. We agree with the Government that it is important to ensure that children with special educational requirements have their needs met in mainstream schools, if those are the most appropriate places for them to be. However, does the Minister accept that if there are complex needs which are not being met, it may be more suitable to place those children with SEN in a special school which may be better equipped and have staff better qualified to meet those requirements? If she agrees with that, how does it marry up with her Government who have reduced the number of places in special schools by 8,000?
	Nevertheless, there is no hiding from it. On the whole, we on these Benches believe that this is a very bad Bill indeed which is indicative of a Government grasping at straws. We see increased central prescription, regulation, bureaucracy, paperwork and time spent out of the classroom on administration. It offers no clarity but ambiguity for all those involved, a legal minefield, and is ever more intrusive in the lives of law-abiding citizens. All of this is at the expense of really engaging with the issue of poor standards and school reform. We just cannot go on like this.
	In contrast, we on these Benches would advocate constructive change-real and effective change at the forefront of the education sector. Where the Government would simply pile up guarantees, agreements and surveys on pieces of paper, we will take action. We will raise the bar for teacher recruitment and training and we will give teachers the tools and the powers they need to keep order in their classrooms. We will deliver more robust examinations and a more rigorous curriculum.
	We will create a new generation of independently run state schools, end wastage and shift spending to a national per-pupil funding formula. Instead of instigating a "licence to practise" for teachers, which will only increase bureaucracy and demonstrates a remarkable lack of trust for the professionalism of the teaching profession, we will take effective action. We hold our teachers in very high esteem; we trust our teachers and we acknowledge the extremely high quality of their work and the commitment that they put into educating our children. The education of our children is paramount to the future of our nation. That is why we will build on this and raise the bar for entry into taxpayer-funded training to ensure that the best graduates become teachers. We will expand successful programmes such as Teach First. We will open up the flexibility of teachers' pay so that heads will be free to pay good teachers according to their merits. We want to ensure that the teaching profession is accorded with the respect and prestige it deserves, and we will do this by ensuring better teacher recruitment and better teacher training.
	Instead of the six areas of learning introduced in Clause 10, which bring a total of 84 detailed objectives in English alone, we will simplify the national curriculum to focus on core knowledge and ensure that the objectives become more challenging. We will replace national tests in the second year of primary school with a simple reading test to ensure that every parent knows their child is being taught how to read properly. We will publish detailed information about the exams which pupils are entered into and the results they achieve. We believe in robust examinations and an academically rigorous curriculum. We know, however, that the way to achieve this is not through choking prescription and centralised control.
	Schools are desperate for change that releases them from prescription and enables them to have freedom. This change should come about through increased choice. We will make it easier for educational charities, groups of parents and teachers, co-operatives and others to start new academies. We will introduce a per capita funding regime and a pupil premium to direct extra funding towards the poorest pupils, whereby pupils and parents can vote with their feet. We will also give every school the right to apply to become an academy; and academies themselves will have their crucial freedoms restored.
	I have studied this Bill carefully. I have thought over the provisions. I have done my research. This is a largely bad Bill-a Bill for headlines and not substance. I am afraid that the only conclusion I can come to is that we just cannot go on like this. It is time for change.

Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, I was going to begin by saying: "Whatever the fate of the Bill, with the uncertainty of an election well in our sights,"-but the speeches so far have demonstrated that an election is well in our sights, with the issues being well set out by both sides. However, the Bill is an opportunity to debate and test a mix of provisions which contain issues of serious principle whereby whoever form the next Government will have in their heads some of the concepts that we need to look to in the future.
	I, too, welcome the focus on children with special needs and those excluded from school. The PSHE provisions that will help children to have a greater understanding of the social and health issues that they must contend with are also most welcome and have been sought by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and others over the years. I am only sorry that she is not here this evening to speak to them. I also welcome the right for children to receive the sex education appropriate to their needs, having listened in my time to hundreds of children on Childline who were totally confused as to what sex is about-with all the dangers that that brings. I only hope that alongside this focus on education we can remember that "education, education, education" works only if we remember "welfare, welfare, welfare". Unless children have their welfare cared for and unless they feel safe and understood, their learning is jeopardised.
	Therefore, I want talk on an issue that I know something about-not particularly education, but the aspects in the Bill that touch on social work related to the family justice system. We all know that at the moment children's social work is at a seriously challenged pivot and that workers are under considerable stress. Local authorities fear that that the position will become more difficult. We feel the effects in the Children and Families Court Advisory and Support Service, in which I declare an interest as its chair.
	I therefore hope that, while we look at the needs of teachers and their licence to practise, as much thought, by whichever party is in power, will be given to the needs of social workers. I know that the Government have done much through the taskforce to take that forward. Therefore, I will not be touching on education at this Second Reading, but on issues relating to the children before the court and the local safeguarding and children's boards.
	The balance between the exchange of information to keep children safe and the respect for the confidentiality of the child and their family is difficult. We get it wrong at our peril. Having been the chair of a similar board in my time and involved in safeguarding for most of my professional life, I am more than aware of the need for appropriate information sharing to keep children safe. But we can go too far. Children feel that, on the whole, their lives become an open book in which they feel they are not respected and are disfranchised. I shall tell the House of a time when I was speaking to a room of judges and policemen. I said: "Would anyone like to get up and tell me about their last sexual experiences?". I have never seen heads go down quite so quickly, but we expect children, when we ask them, to disclose what is happening to them on a whole range of issues.
	That is why I have anxieties also about the so-called opening up of the family courts. These provisions could make the difficult job of CAFCASS officers, who must win the confidence of children, even more difficult. Let me put this in context. Since the death of Baby Peter and the response of some local authorities which took more children through the family court system, CAFCASS saw nearly a 50 per cent increase in care applications-I repeat, a 50 per cent increase. During 2009-10, demand has continued to remain high. In June 2009, we experienced the highest ever care demand level since CAFCASS began keeping records. At the same time, demand has continued to rise for private law cases, mainly of course in the context of divorce-possibly reflecting the stress and breakdown of family life during the recession.
	CAFCASS has a core responsibility to represent the best interests of children and young people by ensuring that their voices are heard and their feelings expressed in all family proceedings. We therefore play a role in upholding Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that,
	"the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child, either directly, or through a representative or an appropriate body".
	We are aware that in some circumstances the facts of the cases we work with may involve the balancing of competing rights. We are also aware that the proposed legislation in the Bill under consideration involves both the right of the media to report in the public interest and the right of children and families to privacy. However, it is absolutely vital that CAFCASS practitioners are able to engage effectively with young people in order to ascertain their wishes and feelings and to communicate these to the court, along with the CAFCASS analysis and recommendations about how the court might best promote their welfare. When undertaking casework, especially involving older children and young people, it is vital to establish open dialogue. This work requires skill, care and confidence, and it takes time to complete.
	The anxiety about the loss of confidentiality will complicate this already complex process. In 2006, we set up a young people's board, all of whom had experience of the courts system: young people to advise us. These young people have indicated that they hope the media would not sensationalise family proceedings in the manner prevalent in the popular press. They are fearful; after what has happened this week in the press in terms of disclosures, I suspect they will be even more fearful.
	Another concern is that despite the planned anonymisation of media reports, the identity of families involved in proceedings could still be apparent should the reporter publish specific incidents or case details. This would be of significant concern in close-knit and specific communities. The young people have also identified that the internet, in particular the comment sections of newspaper websites, are likely to be used for additional speculation, comment and opinions about case details that have been reported.
	Many young people have already voiced the concern that they do not want their wishes and feelings to be communicated to the court as they fear it may upset their parents or make them angry. Other organisations within the Interdisciplinary Alliance for Children and 11 Million endorse the view that provisions may limit the information children choose to share. Have the Government evaluated any other methods of improving transparency, such as pilot initiatives to anonymise family court judgments, which would not subject already vulnerable children to a range of further risks? There could be court open days, and family courts inspectorates with the power to review and report on consistency within the family courts. I am sure there are many other ideas.
	The issues around the changing of the treatment of sensitive personal information and further opening of the family courts should be specifically considered by Parliament. Changes already made to this part of the Bill may provide only weak protection, and alongside Resolution, an association of more than 5,500 lawyers, I query whether the affirmative resolution procedure is enough.
	When taking part in previous legislation going through this House, I have been impressed by the way the Government have adopted and protected the principle that the welfare of children should be paramount. It is what makes them enjoy life; it is what enables them to learn. However, if we listen to the children and young people involved in the research carried out by the University of Oxford for the Children's Commissioner for England, or to the CAFCASS children's board-young people with direct experience of these issues-or to how children tell Childline about their anxiety concerning their privacy, do the Government still hold that principle central to their Every Child Matters agenda, or have they gone by expediency to a new approach, something called transparency but which is really an unconsidered opening to the media? I ask the Minister for children to reinforce that children are central and that their privacy will be respected within the context of the courts.

The Lord Bishop of Bradford: My Lords, as this is International Women's Day, I wonder whether I have been set up for the odd one out round on "Have I Got News for You": three are women, but only the other one is wearing a dress.
	I found what the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said to be very moving, focusing on the heart of what this measure is about and putting children first, so I apologise that I will go back more to address what was said by the Minister and her opposition counterpart.
	I approach this debate with both a professional and a personal interest. I have a professional interest because of the church's strong commitment to and involvement in primary and secondary education, in both church and local authority schools. In the course of my ministry, I encourage vocations to teaching as much as to the priesthood. In fact, I would go so far as to say that, if you want to affect the lives of people in the future, the highest vocation, if there is one, is to teach. I have a personal interest because I have sons-in-law who have done just that; they have responded to that call and taken up the teaching profession. Last week I was delighted to hear that one of them had been given a promotion to a senior management position in his school, but my delight became qualified as I read the measure with all its promises of added regulations, worthy though they are in intent. Indeed, my son-in-law and I had a conversation several weeks ago when he was deliberating with himself whether to stay simply as a teacher or to seek to move up. He is outstanding at his job-mind you, I would say that, wouldn't I?
	I remember a distinguished head teacher telling an astonished audience that his school had only one rule. O the joy! If that could at least be an aspiration, it would help us to avoid teaching by numbers, which is the way we seem to be going. There is a real danger of overregulation destroying the inspiration and enthusiasm essential to good teaching, not least in deterring people from entering the profession itself and then in frightening people who have the holistic education of children at heart from progressing through to management. In many of our schools, we are struggling to find teachers who will take up headships. I am not thinking particularly of church schools; small schools, where head teachers carry a wider brief, are especially vulnerable, as are schools in our inner urban areas.
	I fear for teachers when I read in the Bill of personalised home-school agreements, which are to be reviewed annually-actually, it says "at least" annually. It also says:
	"Consultation with the parent must form part of any review",
	otherwise, presumably, the parent will go into detention. Mention has been made in another place of the complexity of dealing with parents who are separated from each other. I fear for teachers and for schools and their ethos in the face of parent satisfaction surveys if dominated by parents from hell, as they are called in the profession.
	The intention to create and build a partnership between school and home is laudable. It was laudable in 1871, when the headmistress of Brampton New National Schools wrote to parents:
	"You must remember that you have not done all that is required by merely gaining admission for your child into our school. Do not suppose that its education is to be left entirely to the care of the master or mistress, and that you are to do nothing. Unless you labour together with them for your child's welfare, disappointment to all parties will be the result".
	The quotation comes from an article in last Saturday's Yorkshire Post by the writer and former schools inspector Gervase Phinn. However, I do not believe that you can legislate for this.
	Interestingly, the permission for schools to use designated funds in the community will bear much more fruit in bringing parents on board in sharing in the educational well-being of their children. Schools are a natural focus for our communities and, as they expand into them, particularly as centres for lifelong learning, adults and children will encourage each other in their voyage of discovery and families and communities will come together. I welcome this invitation for entrepreneurial initiative in cohesion building.
	I am nervous about plans to license teachers. I license clergy, readers and lay workers. Often the licence says, "at my pleasure". That captures the imagination. What does it mean when somebody has a licence at my pleasure? It means that they fear that, with a flick of my fingers, I can dismiss them from their post. The Government have urged the church to improve its employment terms for clergy. Now I find that, as we are going along the road of improvement, the Government are meeting us going back the other way.
	We have two potentially controversial issues in the Bill and I will address them briefly, although they are not controversial as far as the Church of England is concerned. The first is PSHE and sex education within it. We are completely supportive of compulsory PSHE for all pupils at all stages of their school career. We agree that it should be appropriate to their age and stage of development: it should be child-centred. Naturally, we expect that the content of the PSHE and sex education will accord with the religious traditions and teaching of the school if it is aided or controlled. Most important, we want young people to develop the knowledge and understanding that they need to make informed choices on difficult issues in the context of human relationships in a complex world. We hope that schools will create the climate and the confidence required to minimise the desire of parents to withdraw their children from sex education programmes. We are therefore happy to accept the proposals in the Bill for PSHE and sex education, provided that they are properly resourced.
	I will just briefly mention the concern about the impact on religious education of the Rose review. The curriculum model developed in the report makes no mention of RE. Perhaps, because of its unchanged statutory position, it is judged to need no comment, but I would be grateful if the Minister would enlighten me. Personally, I would prefer RE to come within the planning of the curriculum advocated elsewhere by the review.
	The second potentially controversial issue is home education. We respect the right of parents to opt for home education but consider that this right should be exercised without unnecessary interference from external bodies such as local authorities. The important word is "unnecessary". It would be negligent if there was no effective supervision. We hope that the relevant agencies can work together to provide a light-touch approach to regulation.
	In summary, I believe that, while the Bill is not overly controversial, too much of the legislation is already covered by existing measures. I suggest that we also remove those aspects of the Bill that are simply aspirational, some of which I have mentioned; I believe that they would have little impact on raising education standards. Also, if we get rid of the unnecessary parts of the Bill, my son-in-law will not all too quickly have a hairstyle like mine.

Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, this Bill deserves a warm welcome-as does the White Paper on which it was based, which was welcomed at the time. Many clauses embrace and improve the statutory framework within which LEAs and schools operate and which, when implemented, will lead to better education for the children of this country. All my comments relate to Part 1 of the Bill rather than Part 2, on which I have too little expertise to comment.
	I am delighted that Sir Jim Rose's excellent report on the primary curriculum is reflected in the Bill, with appropriate provisions for reform. I am equally pleased that the Macdonald review's recommendations on personal, social, health and economic education are provided for, making it a foundation subject at key stages 3 and 4, as well as an area of learning at key stages 1 and 2 in primary schools. However, much of what I will say later focuses on a concession made in another place that in my view damages these commitments.
	The Bill's introduction of a registration scheme for home education, following Graham Badman's report, and the clauses dealing with alternative provision following Alan Steer's report, also seem eminently sensible, if a little overdue. Lastly, it provides for special educational needs courses, recommended in the report of Brian Lamb of the RNID. I congratulate the Government on setting up this series of independent inquiries by eminent experts, on accepting the arguments for reform and on bringing forward a Bill to implement them. It is a useful model for future legislation, perhaps not just in the education sector. I am surprised by the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, given that so much of what lies behind the Bill comes from independent experts who have studied many of the issues in great depth.
	Finally in welcoming the Bill, I strongly support the clauses that seek to increase the involvement of parents. Again, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, that I am sure she would agree that if the poor standards that she wants to see addressed are to be addressed, we must involve parents more. A successful educational system must take parents seriously, work in partnership with them and engage them in all sorts of ways. Entitlements for pupils and parents are a start, but pupil guarantees and parent guarantees with mandatory force, applying to head teachers, governors, LEAs and other providers, are a huge and important step towards taking parents seriously and taking further what has already happened.
	I also welcome the decision in Clause 4 to allow for some personalisation of home-school agreements, although I am perplexed about how this will work in practice without creating enormous amounts of extra work for teachers. Perhaps the Minister will elaborate on this when she winds up. Lastly, the surveys seeking parents' views and testing their levels of satisfaction are also to be welcomed. It is important that they should be undertaken with a high level of professionalism if they are going to be both valid and reliable, and the response rates will need to be high. I welcome the decision to enforce the publication of the results of these surveys, and to seek plans from local authorities to deal with any dissatisfaction expressed in them. It is a valuable way of testing parents' views, giving them a say and then getting a proper response from the LEAs and others to what they have said.
	I turn now to the issue of PSHE, which includes sex and relationship education, becoming a mandatory subject, as set out in Clause 11. I was very glad to hear the right reverend Prelate supporting these provisions. As a parent and a grandparent, as well as someone with a long-standing interest in children and young people and their education, I believe that this is a huge step forward. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said, many organisations have called for this for many years, as have teachers, parents and young people themselves. There is now substantial research literature which demonstrates the value of teaching in these areas.
	There is also a great deal of research evidence on the value of sex and relationship education. The pressures on young people through misleading messages about sex in the media have undoubtedly worsened. They need to learn how to resist unwanted advances, how to go for help when they need it, and who to talk to. They need to be clear about what is and is not appropriate behaviour and to be encouraged to be critical of those who overstep the boundaries. Sexually transmitted infections have become a greater risk; and there are still far too many teenage pregnancies, as I am sure noble Lords will agree. Both are reduced, according to the research, by good teaching in sex and relationship education.
	The Bill introduces compulsory teaching of SRE that is accurate, balanced, appropriate to the age, religion and cultural backgrounds of pupils, and that is done in ways that provide equality, encourage acceptance of diversity, and emphasise rights and responsibilities. All these were all examined in the pre-legislative scrutiny by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Its report described the provision and the removal of the parental right to withdraw children over the age of 15 as,
	"significant human rights enhancing measures",
	and as having a,
	"foundation in human rights law".
	Its report also said that the Bill does not prevent faith schools from teaching the tenets of their faith as long as they do not present those views as the only valid ones and that they promote equality and diversity in the way that they teach.
	Why, then, did the Government amend the Bill so that, while religious schools are still required to teach SRE, they may teach it in ways that reflect the religious character of the school? I fear that this is an opt-out clause which will in practice exempt them from having to teach SRE in the way that all other maintained schools must teach it. The Bill is now drafted in such a way that the right of religious schools to teach SRE in ways that reflect their religion overrides the human rights-based principles that the Bill had otherwise embraced.
	The real danger is that faith schools will teach the subject in a narrower and more subjective way. For example, contraception, safe sex or different sexualities may not be addressed in an accurate and open-minded way. As a result, some children will not benefit from the comprehensive and objective teaching that others will get.
	I am sorry not to be able to support the Government wholeheartedly in all aspects of the Bill, as I should like to have done. It seems to me that the Government had it right when they introduced the Bill in another place, and that this amendment has damaged what is an otherwise thoughtful and progressive measure. I anticipate that the Minister may argue that the amendment merely clarifies the position of religious schools. I do not think that is a legitimate interpretation, because the amendment clearly overrides what has gone before and the specifications about reflecting a range of perspectives, encouraging the acceptance of diversity and so on.
	I should perhaps end by apologising to the House for going into such detail at Second Reading. I do so only because I fear that time will run out because of the election and that the Bill will not proceed to Committee; but the Government still have time to think again.

Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone: My Lords, I am extremely pleased to follow the noble Baroness, because I do not intend to speak on PSHE, although I am confident that the next speaker will discuss the subject. I regard this question as far above my pay grade. My daughter is a gynaecologist. I spent far too many years in another place discussing this ad infinitum. I have a common-sense view and I am unable to embrace the emotion that so many feel, so my predecessor and my successor will no doubt make up for my inadequacies.
	I start in a positive mode. Indeed, one of the reasons why I so enjoy being in this place is that, for the most part, I am able to participate in debates in which I feel a great positive sense. I am afraid that I will not be able to fulfil that pleasurable experience in most of my remarks today, because essentially I think that the Bill is monstrously bureaucratic and irrelevant. However, I can start being positive, which I want to do, by saying that I share the welcome for the improved approach to special educational needs. This is an important subject. Few who have been a constituency Member of Parliament-and there are fewer here this evening than is often the case in this place-can fail to be aware of the acute pressures on parents of children with special educational needs or physical disabilities. All too frequently, they have to fight every inch of the way to attain the educational support that their children so desperately need.
	One of my first experiences in my early 20s, when I worked for the Child Poverty Action Group, was giving evidence to the Court inquiry, led by that great paediatrician. His report, with the Committee on Child Health Services, was called Fit for the Future and was published in 1976, which just shows how old we all are. I went around many of those long-stay subnormality hospitals and saw the way in which children, because of a disability, were deprived of any sensible education or an education such that people in the mainstream would receive, provided by the education authorities. Over the years, there has been a great transformation in services for children with special educational needs. However, for some parents, the end of those appalling long-stay hospitals has not solved their problem. There is still a real need for services for which you do not have to fight. I am among those who have a real reservation about the presumption that children with special educational needs are better educated in the mainstream. My experience, both professionally and as a Member of Parliament, has been that many special schools can enable young people with special needs and vulnerability to become confident young people and to do much better. However, I welcome the new development.
	The same cannot be said of the sections on home education, which seem to have maximised ill will. Even the Select Committee commented on how poorly the Government had handled it. Many of us have been bombarded with mail from people involved in home education-50,000 families who, for the most part, were educating their children at home because they were so angry with what the local authorities provided. Parent surveys are unlikely to be to be enormously helpful. Parents educating their children at home for the most part can tell the Government all too clearly what their worries are. Personally, I have reservations about home education as a course of action, but I do not for a moment challenge the passionate commitment of those who have pursued that course. This seems to be a case of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. There seems to be maximum alienation, especially when the Government say that this is about supporting people involved in home education when it is blatantly obvious that they are getting no more financial or practical support in any way. There also seems to be an ambiguity as to whether the Government are really talking about safeguarding children or about the quality of education.
	I will move on quickly from Clause 26. The Government claimed that "education, education, education" would be their mantra, so we are in a fairly worrying place, given that this is their ninth piece of legislation in 13 years. The Minister described the inputs. A Prime Minister for whom I worked, Mrs Thatcher, was always saying, "You should look at the outputs, not the inputs". Certainly in this regard outputs seem to be a long way from the world-class education that the Government proclaim. The Minister should think again. If the inputs are so good, why are the outputs so bad? Why do less than half of all pupils leave school with five or more GCSEs at A* star to C, including maths and English? That is an appalling reproach.
	Many years ago, I used to work in a child guidance clinic in Brixton and Peckham. The one passport to the future was being literate and numerate. I used to work with many West Indian parents. Characteristically, the school would buy steel drums because it had many West Indian children-of all the patronising steps to take, although it was well meant. The parents used to say to me, "Mrs Bottomley, we know that we want our children to read and write, know their tables and be able to sing 'God save the Queen'". They were not great aspirations, but that was then the mismatch between what was being provided and what was wished for by parents, without massive, costly, bureaucratic parent surveys.
	The challenge faces us all. Levels of abuse and violence in schools remain unacceptably high. More than 1,000 pupils every day are suspended or expelled for physical assaults, verbal abuse and threatening behaviour on both pupils and teachers. I hope that the Government will look seriously at the provision of PRUs. The difficulty that heads have in excluding pupils, which most feel has been increased since the Government have been in power, needs to be considered. Time and again, parents complain that children are unable to study and work because of the disruptive effects of other pupils. Of course, we know that those are the pupils most likely to cause delinquency and crime and to have all sorts of behavioural problems.
	Victor Hugo said:
	"He who opens a school door, closes a prison".
	The cost of jailing a young offender is estimated to amount to £100,000 a year. The young people whom we are talking about are ill prepared for this complex, information-led society. They are a reproach to us all. We must find a balance as to how to educate them within our maintained system.
	The recent CPS report suggested that more than one in five 14 year-old boys has a reading age of nine or less. Where are those inputs going? It suggested that 63 per cent of white working-class boys and 54 per cent of black working-class boys are unable to read and write properly at 14. Youngsters from disadvantaged homes are five times more likely to fail to get five good GCSE grades than those from affluent backgrounds. That is not good enough and I do not believe that the contents of the Bill do anything to tackle those issues.
	It may be ironic that this, International Women's Day, is a time when we can all reflect that girls are faring very much better than boys at school. In 2009, the figures for key stage 2-that is, seven to 11-show that girls outperform boys in most subjects. Indeed, they do so in all subjects except mathematics, and that is by only one percentage point. I do not believe that the measures in the Bill will do anything to tackle the cycle of deprivation that all of us recognise has been so critical in disadvantage and difficulty.
	Many years ago, when the noble Baroness was working for the Inner London Education Authority and I was working for Professor Sir Michael Rutter at the Maudsley, a tremendous report was written, entitled Fifteen Thousand Hours. That was a most fascinating comparison, published in 1979, so it was produced in the 1970s. It was a comparison of 12 inner London comprehensives. My noble colleagues will not be that surprised when I say that the first response from the ILEA was that no one should identify the schools, because then all the parents would want their children to go to the good schools. There was a great battle about that. At that time, even taking IQ and parental factors into account, there were huge disparities between the 12 schools in terms of pupil behaviour. The brightest children at the worst school were doing worse than the less able children at the best schools.
	The key factors in Sir Michael's work were very simple and very interesting. I commend Fifteen Thousand Hours to the Government-and to the Opposition, in full hope that they will be able to act on it before the year is out. The factors were: the quantity of student artwork on display, the number of active roles and responsibilities given to pupils, pupils and teachers engaging together in extracurricular activities, energetic lessons where time wasting is minimised and where high performance is expected from the outset, regular and consistent homework, high grading standards, students receiving immediate and positive reactions to performance and the use of punishment associated with poor behaviour and attendance. It takes a lot to convince me that we have moved much further forward in the intervening years.
	I want to say a little about some of the other measures in the Bill. In my opinion, the pupil and parent guarantees are an irrelevant gimmick, which will result in absolute misery. The idea, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, said, that those will be personalised for each child and each parent is ludicrous. That is creating unrealistic expectations. Already, nearly half the parents across the country are disappointed with the secondary school that their child is going to. Those parents and pupil guarantees-guarantees, no less-create artificial expectations that will lead to disenchantment, alienation, rage and frustration on the part of the right reverend Prelate's son-in-law, who will say: "Those people at Westminster have really joined the funny farm altogether now and have no idea what it is like for me at the front line". Accompanying the pupil and parent guarantees is a 79-page document with 407 numbered paragraphs. That is ridiculous. We want good teachers delivering education to the children of this country.
	I support home-school contracts, but I entirely agree with the view of the shadow Secretary of State that the time to sign the home-school contract is when the child is being admitted to the school. Any parent knows that, thereafter, you scarcely read the bits of paper. It is like marriage and a few other things. At the moment of signing, you take it very seriously and look at what is being expected of you. To take it further than that is ludicrous.
	I know that noble Lords have already been generous to me about time, but I really wanted to contrast Sir Jim Rose's report with the 1967 Plowden report on children and their primary schools. We must recognise the degree to which this is a wasted opportunity. The Government should have considered the way in which the Plowden report was approached, the number of people involved and the degree to which it set the compass for primary schools for many years ahead.
	The school report card is another gimmick; it is an initiative that I cannot see delivering anything approaching the results promised for it. The national curriculum and the league tables, which the noble Lord, Lord Baker, introduced, to me were an important step in improving education. When, many thousands of years ago, my children were young and you went to a secondary school and asked about exam results, you would have your head fiercely bitten off. You were told that asking about exam results was imposing middle-class values, that that is not what education is about and that you were not entitled to know the exam results. Many of us of that generation, desperately seeking to keep our children in maintained schools in London, will have had a similar experience. So the league tables and the national curriculum had a part to play, but I think that we are all agreed that it is time to move on. The A* to C preoccupation means an excessive focus on the C to D pupils, but what about getting the B pupils to A*? Because they are not measured, they do not have the same recognition. There is more to do about how you report back to parents. The school report cards will be opaque and inadequate. Children want far more information.
	I wish that I could speak at great length on the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, on media reporting in family court proceedings. This is a critically important subject, to which all of us should give a great deal of attention. Children who have been traumatised and who have had their privacy invaded and destroyed because of the appalling circumstances in which they live should not have this experience compounded by the process in the family court. I am hoping that the noble Lord, Lord Laming, will speak about this at great length.
	Two weeks ago, there was a debate on teaching excellence led by my noble friend Lady Shephard. Many spoke about brilliant teachers. The noble Lords, Lord Parekh and Lord Puttnam, talked about Sir Andrew Motion, who said that when his English teacher Mr Way started teaching,
	"it was as though he walked into my head and turned all the lights on".
	The noble Lord, Lord Parekh, said much about the degree to which the Government do not trust teachers any more and that all is red tape and regulation. Above all, if we want to transform education, we need teachers who are committed. The right reverend Prelate's son-in-law must stay. I am afraid that this Bill will do nothing to make that better.

Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, I declare several relevant interests, first as a parent with two children still at school, also as a school governor of a school with a religious character, and as a foundation governor of a maintained school. Professionally, I have also taught, both in the voluntary aided sector and the state sector, working with both mainstream children and with children with special needs. In parenthesis, perhaps I may say how much I strongly agree with the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, about children with special needs. I hold a chair at Liverpool John Moores University. The Roscoe Foundation for Citizenship, which I founded, runs a citizenship award scheme in 1,000 schools in the north-west of England. I am also patron of the National Association of Child Contact Centres.
	Before turning to the education provisions in the Bill, which will form the main part of my remarks, I express a general anxiety about the lack of scrutiny which this Bill received in another place and the danger that a truncated process in your Lordships' House may well lead to a defective and flawed piece of legislation reaching the statute book. If it cannot be given adequate time for proper consideration before a general election, a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, the Government should not expect to see the Bill glide effortlessly on to the statute book. The Secretary of State, Mr Ed Balls, has said that he hopes this Bill will enable Britain to achieve its ambition of creating a world-class education system, a statement reiterated by the Minister today. Mr Balls has argued for,
	"a ... guaranteed extra catch-up support for every child who falls behind, more powers for parents, a boost to the status of the teaching profession".-[Official Report, Commons,11/1/10; col. 425.]
	If that philosophical approach were made manifest in every provision of the Bill, it would be hard to quarrel with its provisions. As currently drafted, however, the Bill errs on the side of bureaucratic centralised interference in education, eroding both the rights of parents and the status of teachers. This is a great pity because under the stewardship of earlier education Ministers, most notably the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, the Government did much that was positive, particularly through the creation of the academies.
	I cannot believe that the cocktail of additional stultifying bureaucratic provisions, pupil and parent guarantees, home-school agreements, parental surveys, school improvement partners and draconian regulation for home education, all of which have been alluded to in the debate so far, will do more than generate more paperwork and headaches for teachers and parents alike. Every teacher I know feels ground down by a calculating and target-led approach which would do justice to Thomas Gradgrind. We over-examine, over-assess and over-centralise. The professionalism of teachers has been compromised and their ability to innovate has been submerged in an unending tide of bureaucratic control.
	It would be more helpful if, instead of costly legislation, the Government were more focused on the size, for instance, of primary schools. Figures today reveal that 460,000 of those under 11-one in eight of children-are in classes of more than 30 and 210 teachers lead classes of more than 41. In so many respects, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley of Nettlestone, has said, this is a missed opportunities Bill. It is a great pity that the Government did not try to build consensus with the Official Opposition. It strikes me that one of the best pieces of legislation in the 20th century was the Education Act 1944 which was agreed by both sides. RA Butler was Secretary of State at the time and Chuter Ede, a Labour Member, was his PPS. That was one of the great pieces of legislation, enabling vast numbers of people, including people like myself from relatively underprivileged backgrounds, to have the opportunity of going on into higher education. It was agreed through consensus. This Bill, by contrast, is being driven through with an ideological determination.
	I am certain that if there were proper debate around, for instance, the excellent proposals put forward by Mr Michael Gove on Swedish-style free schools and his welcome remarks expressed as recently as Saturday last about creating a new-look curriculum based on consultation with some of the finest minds in the country and especially his ideas about the teaching of history, modern languages and science, we would doubtless find much common ground. The Royal Society of Chemistry has described the science syllabus as "catastrophic". Surely we should take note and do something about it.
	Too many of our schools are far too big. Children disappear into anonymous situations where their childhood is crushed and their potential remains unfulfilled. How much better it would be if our primary schools emulated the preparatory schools of the independent sector and the age of transfer was 13 rather than 11. This would not only allow the immediate reduction in size of too many vast schools but would preserve the innocence of children, allowing them to mature at a better pace. The years 11 to 13 are two of the most productive and fertile years for learning but too frequently youngsters transferring at 11 lose their way in an environment that can become unfriendly and hostile.
	For reasons I will detail in a moment, I hope this Bill will be shelved and that we will wait for something that will free schools, respect parents and honour the professionalism of teachers. Before doing so, let me echo a specific concern about the proposals to release sensitive information about young people in the family court, a point raised by my noble friend Lady Howarth of Breckland. Sue Berelowitz, deputychildren'scommissioner for England, was right to say that,
	"If these children and young people's concerns fail to be addressed in the Bill, we could be faced with a situation where they are unwilling to speak out during family court proceedings and this could result in their best interests not being met".
	I hope the Minister will respond to that and also to the Law Society's point that the current proposals should be deferred.
	Let me turn to the main burden of my remarks, the effect of this new legislation on schools. First, I want to register, as others have done, the strongest possible objection to Clause 26 which seeks to change the way that parents who educate their children at home are to be regulated. The estimated cost of the implementation of this is about £20 million, about £1,000 per home-educated child. This is money that could be far better spent in other areas of education than in another layer of inspection. Twenty-two per cent of children nationally enjoy private maths tuition, 43 per cent in London. Are they to be legislated for next? Do we not need to ask why parents feel the need to use private tutors or home educate or why more than half a million parents opt for the independent sector, or why Cabinet Ministers and political leaders are among the millions who rightly choose faith schools? We should celebrate the diversity of this position and learn from it; not seek to crush it.
	I was particularly struck by a letter I received about the home-education provision from Professor and Mrs Bruce Stafford, who said that,
	"this Bill replaces our right to educate 'otherwise' with a licensing scheme and in so doing removes our right to privacy and the presumption of innocence".
	Having looked at the arguments, it is hard not to conclude that the Badman review on which the relevant clauses in the Bill are based was poorly conducted. Fair and reasonable legislation cannot emerge from a flawed evidential review. There are already laws in place to protect a child where there is a suspicion that children are at risk of harm or that insufficient education is taking place. The Bill's proposals are opposed by the majority of home educators. Of the respondents to the proposal, 4,497 out of 4,833-that is 93 per cent-thought that the proposals did not strike the right balance; 3,281 respondents out of 3,776-that is 87 per cent-disagreed with the proposals for registration and monitoring. Given the Secretary of State's own criterion of giving power to parents, home-educating parents would judge the Bill to be a failure.
	Concerns have also been expressed by parents about the scope of the Government's proposals for PSHE. This is my second major concern about the Bill. I agree with my noble friend Lady Howarth, to whom I am grateful for the curtain raiser in her remarks a little earlier, that young people need to have an understanding of sex in relationships, but many parents are anxious that their children should not lose their innocence too young and that teaching about sexual relationships should not seek to eliminate the role and the wishes of parents-a point made by the right reverent Prelate the Bishop of Bradford. Loving long-term relationships, particularly the blessing of a durable marriage and the gift of children, should not be seen as a redundant concept.
	At the moment, sex education is taught in a way that provides scope for considerable parental influence on two bases. The first basis is that the curriculum is devolved to schools and determined on a school-by-school basis by governors in consultation with parents. This arrangement means that this particularly delicate subject is taught in line with the ethos of the school that is chosen by parents and that there is scope for parental involvement in determining the curriculum to a degree that would not be possible were it in the national curriculum. Secondly, if parents find themselves in a minority and unable to shape the curriculum as they wish, with the result that the child is to be taught in a way to which they object, they can currently exercise their right to withdraw their child from sex education lessons.
	The Bill seeks to take away powers from schools and parents by placing sex education and relationship education-SRE-on to the national curriculum and removing the parental right to withdraw children for the last year at school. How does that sit alongside the rights of parents-a point which the Minister restated today? This trend towards centralisation is confirmed very eloquently by a timely legal opinion from the eminent employment and human rights QC, John Bowers. It states:
	"In essence at present the SRE policy and resulting curriculum is not determined centrally by the National Curriculum but on a school by school basis by parents and governors. The Bill therefore represents a radical appropriation of power by central government, enabling them to dictate teaching on a matter over which many parents have strongly held moral or religious convictions. The Bill would further erode parental influence in an area which many parents would assert is a matter for the family rather than for schools".
	This erosion of the rights of parents should be resisted. First, government rhetoric, certainly during the era of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has quite properly gone very much in the direction of devolving more powers to schools and enhancing parental choice. In the midst of this enlightened trend, the centralising clauses are entirely inappropriate. Secondly, research demonstrates very clearly that SRE works best when parents are more involved. If we are to respond effectively to the evidence base, we should increase not decrease the role of parents in SRE. Decreasing the scope for parental influence is precisely what the Bill would do.
	The proposed changes to the right of parents to withdraw their children from such lessons are entirely contrary to the spirit of Protocol 2 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which states that,
	"the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions".
	Many parents are particularly outraged at this proposal, and at the other main innovation in the Bill that henceforth primary schools must teach SRE to children from the age of five. This is causing considerable public hostility. Sixty-eight per cent of respondents to the Government's own consultation said that they did not want SRE to be placed on the national curriculum, and 79 per cent of respondents said that they did not want the parental right to withdraw a child to be interfered with. Simply ignoring the views of parents on such a sensitive matter smacks of arrogance and the worst kind of nanny state.
	The proposed changes will also put governors and teachers with conscientious objections in an invidious position. Counsel's opinion, which I cited earlier, is that the new impositions may lead to applications, by pressure groups as well as by parents, for judicial review to enforce the relevant duties. It would be unfortunate if the Bill led to an increase in such litigation, thus diverting vital resources away from front-line teaching. We owe a considerable debt of gratitude to the voluntary endeavour of school governors, and we should trust them and not dictate to them.
	There is an additional consideration for schools of a religious character. Many parents opt to send their children to a faith school precisely because of the values which it espouses and the ethos which it strives to create. Recent remarks by the Schools Secretary risk undermining the character of those schools and have caused consternation and indignation. Last week, I tabled a Written Question to the Government, indicating my intention to raise this point. It was reported in the media that:
	"Catholic schools must teach pupils where to access an abortion, Schools Secretary Ed Balls has said".
	Mr Balls said this on the "Today" programme:
	"What this changes is that for the first time"-
	Catholic schools-
	"cannot just ignore these issues or teach only one side of the argument".
	The Minister herself said something similar today at the Dispatch Box. I cannot begin to tell the Minister how much anxiety this has engendered, and not just among Catholics, Jews, Muslims and Anglicans, who as a matter of conscience believe abortion to be the taking of an innocent life.
	This is not a trivial matter, and I hope that the Government realise the implications. The Government need to understand that such a fundamental attack on the character and ethos of faith schools will create a crisis of conscience for parents and teachers alike. After their inept handling of the adoption agencies issue, the Government should understand the enormity of this question which they have opened.
	As someone who left a political party when it said that abortion had to be a party policy rather than a matter of conscience, I can say with some feeling that Catholics and many others will not meekly accept that their children should routinely be taught how to procure abortions. That is promotion, not information, and the Government really do need to clarify the difference between the two. This is a wholly unacceptable assault on the rights of conscience, beliefs, the integrity of religious foundations, and the integrity of families.
	I hope the Minister will assure the House that teachers will, as professionally skilled practitioners, have the discretion and flexibility to teach SRE in ways that are consonant with their identification of the needs and the maturity of their pupils, and that this will be reflected in their ability to choose appropriate materials and strategies, subject to the school's SRE policy as determined by the school's governing body. I hope that the Government will assure us that the level of prescription in the programmes of study for PSHE education, particularly SRE, will not compromise the values of schools with a religious character or require them to promote activities or behaviour that undermine their religious values. I also ask the Government to give similar reassurances on matters of guidance or regulation that they may issue from time to time on PSHE education, and SRE in particular.
	To conclude, while I am deeply opposed to the legislation before us, I do not wish to give the impression that I am complacent about the problems that it seeks to address. Our teenage pregnancy rate and levels of abortion among young people are some of the highest in the world, but in looking at the problem we fail to see the elephant in the room. Clauses 10 to 14 are some of the most unenlightened clauses that I have ever encountered in my 30 years in Parliament. They marginalise parents and make life impossible for governors, faith schools and teachers. If the Bill reaches Committee and Report, I intend to lay amendments that challenge many of its aspects. I hope, for the reasons that I have given and because of my other objections to the Bill, that this legislation never reaches the statute book.

The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, I welcome the Bill and thank the Minister for her introduction. I apologise for not being able to be present for the first couple of minutes; I was not quick enough to reach the Chamber. I also thank the Government for their significant investment in teaching over several years, and I welcome the Government's raising of the status of teaching and increasing teachers' salaries, which is crucial. Indeed, one of the themes of this debate has been that the professionals who educate our children and the social workers who work with our children make the biggest difference to children's success in life.
	I am very grateful for the work that Moira Gibb and the Social Work Taskforce have done for social workers, but I have one slight comment to make, which I hope will be borne in mind for the future. I know that it has been a priority for the Government to address the needs of the workforce, but my sense has been that too many other priorities have sometimes occluded the need to focus on teachers, social workers, health visitors, staff in residential childcare and in other related professions.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, spoke of the Conservative commitment to raising the bar in respect of teacher recruitment into courses. I very warmly welcome that. Speaking with two deputy heads of primary schools last week, I found it was exactly what they desired. Another primary school head teacher recently told me that she regretted that, in her own and her staff's limited experience, the quality of candidates in the past five years or so seemed to be declining in terms of numeracy and literacy. So I do welcome what the noble Baroness proposes.
	I should like to speak about personal, social, health and economic education within the Bill. As we might not have a Committee stage, I should like to focus on this area and try to go into a little depth on it. I should like to emphasis three main points. One is the need to prioritise the training of PSHE teachers, because there are so many competing interests in teacher training. Making this a statutory responsibility will help to do that. Secondly, it will reduce the levels of teenage pregnancy, and that is very important. Flowing from that, there is a particular concern that I know many of your Lordships have: the number of black and working class white boys growing up without fathers in difficult circumstances. I hope that this introduction of better sex and relationship education early in children's lives will help them to make better choices of partners. This will result in more children experiencing the presence of their fathers in their up-bringing.
	The quality of the training of teachers has shrunk over many years. When the Minister's parents trained as teachers, they may have had three or four years' training for a Bachelor of Education degree in teaching. But that has gradually declined, and a one-year post-graduate certificate in education has become much more important. There has long been a concern that one year is not enough time to equip teachers with what they need when they enter the school gate. I remember Professor Sir Michael Rutter referring to this when he spoke about child development some time ago at the British Psychological Society.
	More recently, for the best possible reasons, more teachers are being trained on the job, so they are not necessarily having access even to the education that is provided in colleges. So we have teachers who might be better at their specialist subject, and there are more of them, which is very welcome. But they are not getting the pedagogical understanding that they need to teach well in all subject areas.
	I will develop that a little further. I spoke to a teacher who trained in Hungary, who spent several months observing one child, making careful notes of that child's development, and speaking about what she observed with her tutor and her peers. I am not aware of that happening in this country. In Finland, where they have the highest performance in the PISA tables, I understand that the teachers have a five-year qualification. Roughly the last two years are spent either in a range of placements in various schools, so they have a wide experience of what schools are doing, or in pedagogical development and understanding the philosophy of education and child development.
	I do feel it is important to prioritise PSHE within this very confined space that teachers have to learn in during their initial training. It is crucial to have good quality PSHE. Teachers must be equipped to teach this difficult subject to children. I am also wondering where the Master's qualification in teaching is now going. I should be grateful for any information that could be provided about the future of this proposal, which is very welcome in principle, that teaching should be a Master's qualification.
	In Holland particularly, good quality sex and relationship education appears to have brought down teenage pregnancy rates and kept them down. In the United States, it has taken some time for there to be some demonstrable impact, but a 2008 article by Mueller et al says:
	"Our analyses suggest that sex education before first sex helps protect youth from risky sexual behaviors. For population groups that are often considered the most disadvantaged (i.e. urban, African American females), sex education seems to be the most beneficial. Researchers have recently documented the contribution of delayed sexual initiation and improved contraceptive use to the decreased teen pregnancy rate ... findings from our analysis suggest that sex education received before first sex by youth in formal settings may contribute to this positive outcome. Sex education should continue to be implemented in schools, community centers and churches and, to be most effective, should occur before youth engage in sexual intercourse for the first time. Sex education provides youth with the knowledge and skills to make healthy and informed decisions about sex, and this study indicates that sex education is making a difference in the sexual behaviors of American youth".
	The UK still has the highest level of teenage pregnancy among its neighbours. There has been a welcome reversal in the upward trend, but we are still performing poorly. We should remember what that means. It means that girls and young women are not completing their education, are often not entering employment, are dependent on the state and do not pay taxes. Those are just the most obvious implications of the high teenage pregnancy rate, but of course the children often suffer as well.
	I apologise for taking so long at this time of night. My third point is that I hope that this policy will enable more fathers to keep in touch with their children. If children receive sex and relationship education early so that they learn how to make better choices in their life partners, to think about their emotions and are able to speak about their decisions openly in school with their classmates and teacher, I hope that they will begin to form more committed relationships. As a result more children would have the pleasure of knowing their fathers. Many noble Lords will know of black and white working class men who do not have the opportunity of knowing their fathers, and it is distressing to see their unhappiness about the experience. They often perform poorly and may well live in poverty. Many of them recognise that their mother has to work twice as hard as she might otherwise have to since she is living without a partner.
	To conclude, I hope that your Lordships will feel able to befriend this part of the Bill, although I know that it may not have a Committee stage. It could make a significant contribution to breaking the cycle of deprivation that we are so familiar with. It will ensure that teachers are better equipped to teach sex and relationships education. It will reduce the rate of teenage pregnancy and will have beneficial outcomes for children, including more boys having ongoing contact with their fathers.

Lord Soley: Perhaps I may begin by welcoming the Government's position on doing something for which I have been arguing for some years: to try to customise and personalise the delivery of public services. Whatever one's views politically, it is an interesting part of the argument that we feel we need to make the public services that people generally want more responsive to individual needs. Whether that is about opening the school down the road-a right the Conservatives want to give and which addresses the issue, although I am not convinced it is a good idea-or the sort of thing set out in this Bill-it is an idea which has been waiting to happen for some time. It is about trying to deliver more effectively the small group and one-to-one teaching needed for some children on some occasions during their educational process. Certainly it is something that I would have welcomed. The idea of personalising services and making sure they address the needs of the child at different stages of his or her development is an important step forward. Although some people may scoff, if we do not start somewhere, we will not catch up with other countries such as Finland, which have been very successful with this. I commend the Government on the proposal.
	My main purpose for intervening tonight is on the issue of home education. I put an entry on Lords of the Blog, not at the time expecting it to attract too much attention, saying that, like everyone else, I think that home education requires a great deal of commitment. Although I have nothing against it, it needs to be regulated, and I knew then that the regulatory system in Great Britain is significantly less rigorous than almost any other country in Europe. Even with the proposals in the legislation, it will still be less rigorous than most. Indeed, some countries such as Germany do not even allow home education to take place. There is a broad range of treatment across different countries.
	I was interested to see that the piece received a massive response. A post on the blog normally attracts 500 or 600 visits a day. This one attracted thousands, and it went on for a couple of days. You cannot tell what conclusions people are drawing. A person who selects a particular entry on a blog is a bit like someone who picks up a newspaper. They may or may not read it and they will agree or disagree with what they are reading. We cannot know. What we do know is that several hundred people commented on the posts put on by myself and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and therefore recorded their views. The vast majority of them were opposed to what the Government are doing. I was struck by the tone of some of the contributions. They seemed to think that their basic rights were being swept aside. That brings to the fore something referred to by the right reverend Prelate: the balance between the rights of the parents and the rights of the child, because children have rights too. Very often we talk about our children as "my children" or "my child". That does not mean that the child belongs to you; it does not mean the child does not have rights. When the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, referred to honing up the national curriculum and making it apply to all children, the question arises about whether it applies to home-educated children. If it does, how do you make sure they get it? If not, why is it so important? It is a real dilemma that has to be addressed.
	We need regulation. My line on the blog was, essentially, that home education is fine; that the majority of parents do it very well; and that it is an enormous commitment in time and resources by those parents. However, we cannot ignore the fact that not everyone does it well or for good reasons. On my first post about this I simply said that there are obvious examples. The first and most obvious one is whether the child is getting the educational standard they need to be able to cope with modern life-basic reading, writing, arithmetic and so on. I then said there was another small, but nevertheless, important problem: was the child taken out of school in order to avoid the attention of the authorities? That means, of course, was the child subject to abuse?
	It is interesting that about the time that this happened in the past week or so, the case of the young child in Birmingham who was tragically starved to death came up. A number of home educating parents reacted angrily to that; they said that that was nothing to do with home education but with a failure of the local authority. Whether it is or is not does not alter the fact that some parents will choose to take their children away from where they can be seen by the public for reasons which are not good. We have to address this issue. It is not enough to say, as some people did in their comments, that you cannot make the law apply just because of one case; the trouble is that there will be other cases. I believe-I may be right, I may be wrong-that home education will grow. If it does and you want to remove your child from the attention of the authorities, you are signalling that this is the way to do it. That is what that family did in Birmingham.
	The third comment I put on is that there are cases in this country of girls being kept out of normal education because it is not believed that they should be able to read, write, do science and so on. That is also a problem in certain communities and certain places. It is not confined to overseas groups by any means, as some people believe, or to certain religious groups, although religion sometimes comes into it. Again these children have rights; they are children and they have rights. I believe home education is right-I have no problems about that-but we need regulation.
	I would ask Members who have commented on this to go back to the blog over the past couple of days and look at the entries. I was quite worried by some of the comments. People are doing this for good reasons, I am sure, but I was worried about some of the underlying attitudes towards the rights of children. We need to bear this in mind, particularly when taking into account the United Nations declaration on the rights of the child and the need to respond to that.
	Many parents seem to want to home educate-I am reading between the lines here-because of bullying. However, bullying has always been around and is always a problem; you cannot avoid it altogether. Parents have different views on this. I say this gently, but parents have to make a decision about how much they protect a child by removing them from a situation, or how much you protect them by keeping them in a situation and helping them to find their way through it. I certainly come into the second category. I have never played what I regard as an overprotective role. Where bullying is concerned, it is necessary both to intervene with the school and help your child to see the process through because, however long you live as a parent, you are not going to be able to look after your child for ever.
	I referred to two cases of home education that I know about personally-I know of very few-which make the case for regulation. In the first case, a woman took her child out of my son's school in Acton-I do not know why-and, as far as I know, she has done very well; she was certainly committed and I suspect she was very good at it. Another woman, who was also a good mother, was good at it most of the time but had bouts of depression. She was not depressed to the extent that she would be taken into hospital, but to the extent where she was not able to do the job at home. So not only was the child not being educated, suddenly they were acting as a carer in the home for their mother. That is not a good situation. So when people say that you do not need regulation or inspection, I think they are wrong.
	The other thing that puzzled me about the reaction of many parents was the incredible hostility to Graham Badman, who wrote the report. So I went away and reread it-I had not read it very carefully in the first place-and I can understand some of the things that they are worried about. However, he says about the training of officers who have to be part of the inspection process:
	"This training must include awareness of safeguarding issues and a full understanding of the essential difference, variation and diversity in home education practice as compared to schools".
	He goes on to say, about the training of inspectors,
	"the home educating community should be involved in the development and/or provision of such training".
	That is wholly good and should be encouraged.
	Graham Badman goes on to recommend that people who home educate should have access to additional resources. What would you do with your child if you wanted them to have good science lessons? Where is your science laboratory going to be? What about if you want them to have wide musical experience? Where will that be unless you just take them to places or pay for it individually? The educational authority can provide that. The home-educating community needs to engage more fully and more positively, not just with the Government, but with people like Badman, who, for whatever reason, they have taken an intense dislike to. It needs to work out what sort of training and regulation is needed and to work, over a period of time, to improve that. You will not get it right on day one, so it needs to be a continuing process. This is why I think the home-educating community needs to have a voice. Judging by the response on the blog, it has a voice all right: it is a lobby and I congratulate it on that. We need to reach out and hear communities like that-that is what the Lords of the Blog is about-but they also need to engage. Whatever Government are in power in the future, no Government will fail to legislate on this: there is going to be additional legislation. The argument is, what type, how much, who does it and what capacity you make to change the system as you learn from it.
	If home education is done well, it will benefit enormously from additional support. If it is done badly, then it is important that those children have their rights respected too. I encourage those who have spoken about this to read the comments on the blog, as a parent or as someone who thinks that children have rights and see if they think that all those people have the right balance between the rights of parents and of children. It is difficult-it is not easy. I do not have the right answer, but home education is here to stay; it might well grow, but at the edges there will be very real problems, so we need a regulatory system that picks that up and responds to it. I hope that the Government will not lose sight of that. I think that they are addressing it quite well at the moment, but it is still very early days.

Lord Laming: My Lords, I shall speak solely in support of Clauses 28 and 30. I feel sure that the whole House will share with me the hope that the day will never come when we fail to be shocked when something awful happens to a child or young person who has already been identified by the local services as being in danger of suffering serious neglect or deliberate harm. It is for that reason that I welcome the parts of the Bill that strengthen the work of the local safeguarding children boards. Indeed, I commend the Government on the progress made since the death of Victoria Climbié. As a result, in every local authority there is now a director of children's services, a local safeguarding children board and a lead member for children's services, as well as the availability of considerable guidance on good practice, including in inter-agency working.
	The work of local safeguarding children boards is of immense importance, not least in undertaking serious case reviews when a child has been killed or seriously injured and abuse or neglect is known, or suspected, to have been a factor. However, does the Minister agree that the purpose of these reviews is not always well understood? Is it not important that we recognise that these reviews, important as they are, are not inquiries and that it is certainly not within their remit to apportion blame? As your Lordships will recall, the primary function of these reviews is to learn lessons to improve service provision by highlighting ways to improve good practice, both locally and nationally. The task is therefore to conduct a detailed study of all aspects of the child's life, the family circumstances and the activities of each of the services that were directly involved.
	Does the Minister agree that in these circumstances, success depends predominantly on securing voluntary contributions by everyone with knowledge of the child and the family? The challenge is to persuade everyone involved to have the confidence to be open and frank with the review. It is important to recognise that this often entails family members, neighbours and others revealing aspects of their sometimes chaotic lives that they might well prefer to remain hidden, and helping professional staff to be willing to expose less than adequate performance or conflicts between agencies.
	The reality is that the local safeguarding children boards have few powers in this respect when conducting serious case reviews. Indeed, their main power rests solely on persuasion and the guarantee of personal confidentiality to each and every contributor. I therefore welcome the provisions included in the Bill to enable local safeguarding boards to better gather all the relevant information they need to carry out their functions.
	In the progress report that I prepared on child protection in England, I indicated that these boards must have access to full information and must see all the key players in order to give greater confidence that serious case reviews, and indeed child death review processes, are doing the job intended of them. Because of comments made elsewhere, not least in another place, does the Minister agree that any local authority or health authority can formally establish an inquiry either in circumstances where the criteria for a serious case review are not met or in addition to such a review?
	I hope the House will excuse a personal reflection. When, some 10 years ago, I was persuaded to chair an inquiry of this kind established jointly by a local authority and a health authority, following the conviction of a patient of the mental health services for the death of a local person, the limits of the powers of the inquiry to gather evidence were all too evident. Indeed, if media reports are correct-I realise that that is always a big "if"-mention was made in the inquiry report on the hospital in Mid-Staffordshire that the former chief executive of the hospital declined to give evidence to that inquiry, which was conducted by a leading QC. If that is correct, it demonstrates all too clearly the need for everything to be done to assist serious case reviews to access all the relevant information.
	If I may make another personal comment, when Parliament established the independent statutory inquiry following the death of Victoria Climbié, it invested in the inquiry very wide powers, which frankly I never expected to have to use. In the event, though, sadly, I had to employ each one of those powers. I mention that only to emphasise that serious case reviews are very different from inquiries and must be treated as such. Most of all, we should not underestimate the difficult task that we have given to those who conduct these serious case reviews-a task so important that, on average, 100 or so such reviews are initiated each year in this country. Chairing or writing the report of a serious case review is very demanding and, therefore, it behoves us to do all that we can to help those who do this work achieve the best possible outcome.
	It is clear to me, and I hope the Minister will agree, that it would be entirely unreasonable to embark on a serious case review and at the outset give a guarantee of confidentiality to all concerned, only for that to be disregarded later.
	I was somewhat surprised that mention has been made elsewhere that it would be possible to preserve the confidentiality of these review reports by redacting sections of them. I would have thought that the other place might already have had sufficient experience of the hazards of trying to publish sensitive material in a redacted way. I hope the Minister will agree that any attempt to handle a report of a serious case review in this way would result in page after page being blacked out. Therefore, it would not achieve the objective that those who mention this possibility have in mind.
	Furthermore, it is surely unrealistic to think that only certain review reports would be published, not least because at the outset it is impossible to know which reports are likely to attract most media attention. More than that, it is surely important to recognise that the suffering of every child must be of equal concern and that we must guard against allowing the degree of media interest to determine which reports can or cannot be published. I feel strongly about this point because I believe that we have entrusted a most arduous task to those who conduct serious case reviews. In my view, the legislation and guidance that is currently laid before Parliament needs either to be protected or, I fear, that it will need to be abandoned. That is why I warmly commend Clauses 28 and 29 to the House and I hope that they will command the support of the whole House.

Lord Lucas: My Lords, I grow potatoes like this Bill-they look pretty good when you dig them up, but when you have washed them, knocked the knobbly bits off, peeled them, cut out the rotten bits and dug the slugs out of their holes, you wonder why you bothered. The first part just seems to me to be sheer electioneering. What is the point of a guarantee which is no guarantee? What is the point of promising people things that are so ill defined that they do not really know what they are getting? How on earth is a personal home-school agreement practical? The point of home-school agreements is that they apply to the whole school; that they are universal, simple and understandable. You may need a few personal ones in very extreme cases, but you are going to need an extra head teacher just to handle home-school agreements, if you give them the time that they will require.
	I am not at all confident that we should move ahead with the Rose review, as proposed in this Bill. The abandonment of knowledge in favour just of learning seems to me to be against all experience. There is no mention, as the right reverend Prelate remarked, of religious education. There is precious little mention of foreign languages. There is no specification of the knowledge which should underpin learning. We are really drifting into some very strange territory. It is a nice report, but there is no real underlying evidence that this is the right thing to do. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has said, we are moving into some very strange territory in the PSHE requirements.
	It is not at all clear to me where this Government now stand in relation to the rights and practices of faith schools. It is in the nature of faiths, or at least some parts of them, that followers believe that they are the only ones who are going to be saved and that certain practices are a sin and should not be contemplated. How can you compel those schools to go against the fundamental tenets of their religion? It does not seem to me that the Government have worked out that contradiction at all.
	It disappoints me, too, that we seem to be looking at PSHE in a very old-fashioned way, as a collection of things that children are to be told to do or not to do, rather than teaching children how to make decisions for themselves and how to tackle the unexpected and the unknown as well as they will tackle the predetermined questions that go into the PSHE syllabuses. That part of the Bill deserves a lot of attention. The same applies to the rest of it, but the part about home education is the bit that I would wish to cut out.
	The noble Baroness said today that in a very small number of cases education is not satisfactory. She told me, when we met to discuss the Bill a day or two ago, that there was no intention to impose a curriculum; and that there was unequivocal support from the Government of the right to home-educate. I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Soley, that legislation in this area is inevitable, but why then is the Bill as it is? Why is the home education community up in arms? I share with the home education community the fears that it expresses on the blog, on my blog and elsewhere. There seems to be something in the DCSF, which I have not identified in any of the people I have met, that is malevolent to home education and wishes to destroy it.
	Why else does the Bill start from the principle that you are only allowed to home-educate if the local authority gives you permission to do so? It may withdraw that permission, on review, every year. Why do we start with the idea that you have to produce a syllabus to be allowed to home-educate, when the basis of autonomous education is that the child follows their own path, with you at their side? You cannot produce a syllabus until a year has passed and you look back. Why do none of those good things in the Badman review, about training and support, appear in the Bill?
	What has done the damage in making progress in what, I agree, is an inevitable direction, is what is written in the Bill. The Badman report was hard enough. The thing that hurt there was the idea that it should be compulsory for your child to spend time alone with an inspector. Having time alone with an inspector is not something which one would readily allow for one's own children, even though they are in school. It is not in the Bill but it was in the Badman report. It is in the Bill by implication. If you do not allow the access to your child that the local authority requires, it can refuse home education, and that access may include-if the local authority judges it right-time alone with an inspector.
	We seem to have set out, in going down a quite proper road, with the wrong foot and, as a result, trodden on a landmine and found ourselves blown up. We must realise that we cannot carry on, particularly with no Committee stage, to make something of Clauses 26 and 27 and Schedule 1. They must be restarted and revisited. There are some good principles on which this can be done. The first is to recognise what my noble friend Lady Verma said. Our school system is far from perfect and for children in care we do even worse. We should not expect something from home-educating parents that we do not deliver in the system which we present as an alternative.
	We should show respect to home-educating parents, who are, in most cases, shouldering burdens and responsibilities which, otherwise, we would have to shoulder. There are people who home-educate purely out of conviction. There is certainly a strong stream of those. However, there are many parents who home-educate children with special needs or children who, as the noble Lord, Lord Soley, said, have been bullied.
	It is fine to work with the school. I thoroughly encourage the remedy that the noble Lord, Lord Soley, suggested; but schools are not perfect. Many schools still do not deal with bullying properly. You can get to the point where a child is prostrate at the thought of going to school, cries continually, will not do it and is obviously very distressed. You know-because you have seen the head teacher or tried to get through to the school-that they are not dealing with the bullying but are allowing it to continue. Under those circumstances, home education is a totally reasonable alternative. Where children with special needs are not being properly dealt with, it is also a much better alternative. The situation is much better than it used to be, but it is not perfect. Many schools do not deal well with special needs. These parents are taking on often difficult children but always difficult cases and are looking after them without support. That deserves our respect.
	Where we have evidence-evidence is pretty thin on the ground in this country but it has been produced in other countries-home education seems on average to be at least as good as school education. We should not have fundamental prejudices against it but we have to recognise that in most cases the style will be different. There are things you can do one-to-one that you just cannot do in school. In school you require structure, curricula and timetables. If you are one-to-one, you can go without that. The Bill ought to start out by respecting all those things and then go on to provide assistance. Children who are being home educated find it very hard to take exams because there is nowhere for them to take them. Where do you find a centre to take GCSEs? How do you deal with the modern GCSEs that require moderation of coursework? There is no capacity for that in home education. As the noble Lord, Lord Soley, pointed out, it is extremely difficult to get remedial help or specialist help when your child has problems in a particular area. There is much good practice in providing special educational needs support, but it is extremely deficient in some areas.
	If you provide support for home education, most-but not all-home educating parents will take advantage of it. You will get to see as much of those children as you need to just by them turning up at classes that are provided. Children with special needs get no special access to swimming pools, have no facility to learn first aid or to be taught how to ride a bicycle. They do not get taken on a week's holidays in Wales. All sorts of things that are available to ordinary children could be made available to home-educated children. The budget is there because, through the Bill, the Government are proposing to spend £40 million a year-£2,000 per home-educated child, on average-that is £20 million on observing them and another £20 million on corralling into school the 20 per cent of home-educated children who they say are not up to scratch.
	That is another reason why the department is not trusted. It has produced a range of figures in the impact assessment that are frankly daffy. It said that 20 per cent of children are not receiving a suitable education: 15 per cent of that figure are children who have not been assessed, and only 5 per cent have any question mark over them. The real figure of pupils who ought to be being better educated is something like 2 or 3 per cent. It said that there was a double risk of children who were being home educated being the subject of safeguarding concerns. Again, it has messed up the figures there. The absolute number-51 children in home education-were giving cause for concern, but it divided that by the number of children in home education that it knew about, whereas it knows that there are two, three, or four times as many who are not registered. However, any of those who are not registered and who become the cause of concern immediately move into the registered section. Therefore, rather than looking at double the risk, you are looking at about half the risk of children in home education causing concern if you do the statistics right. The Government's deliberate distortion of the position has really upset the home education community, and I am not at all surprised. A bit of honesty and openness would go a long way.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Soley, said, we will get regulation at the end of the day, but there are underlying concerns. There are changes in our society that are bound to have an impact on home education. My basic message to the Government on home education is: let us begin again. Let us forget about this section of the Bill, cut it out when it comes to the wash-up, and begin again. That way we have a hope of getting something which will do justice to the home education community and calm the fears and concerns we have for the children involved.

Baroness Deech: My Lords, I, too, wish to address the issue of home schooling, which is covered by Clause 26 and Schedule 1. There has been massive representation on this issue from home educators who object to registration and see the provisions as taking away the right to educate at home, whereas it is merely a system of registration and not a very onerous one at that. We do not know what we do not know. There are no firm statistics about the number of children receiving home education, although it is commonly said to be 80,000. We do not know how representative in terms of quality and quantity the home educators who have flooded their MPs, and my blog site, with their views are. They cannot amount to more than 6 or 7 per cent, but the rage and resentment they express, their mishmash of ideological views, their rejection of state interference, their indifference to the rights of the child, their accusations of totalitarianism and their superiority over those who would like to help the child do not paint a good picture of home educators. They made me determined to speak up for the rights of the child, when I had taken hardly any notice of home education until recently. I have now immersed myself in the topic.
	Registration is to be welcomed, together with the parent's statement of plans for the child's education, but I have seen no method in the Bill for ensuring that every child who is not being educated at school but, purportedly, at home, is registered. Only those children whose parents apply for registration will be registered and the entire scheme could be scuppered by a failure to do so. I would be grateful to hear from the Minister whether the children's register, ContactPoint, can be used for this purpose; granted that there can be no accurate assessment of which children should be receiving education at five unless all those born in and who arrive in England after birth are included and tracked.
	The existing law is weak. Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 states that parents have a duty to secure efficient full-time education suitable for their child. There can be no duty in law unless there is a correlative right, and no right without a correlative duty to secure that right. Children have rights. That is the most important principle of all. It should be underpinning this Bill and must be conveyed to home-educating parents. The rights are clear. Article 28 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child says that states must undertake to ensure that primary education is compulsory for all and that different forms of secondary education should be available and accessible to every child. Article 29 says that education in all institutions must conform to standards laid down by the state. Article 31 protects the right of the child to play and recreation, and to cultural and artistic activities. Article 12 says that the child has the right to express his or her views-a right which is set to be denied if this Bill does not permit the child to be seen alone by an inspector but only in the company of the parent.
	Article 2 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights also grants the right to education while respecting the rights of parents to have their children educated in accordance with their views. The European Court has held that this, of necessity, implies state regulation of the education that the child receives. The court held that Germany was entitled to ban home education. It is the duty of home-educating parents to secure for their children the education pledged in international treaties; the parents do not have stand-alone rights to determine that education in any way that they wish without state regulation.
	Since home education has no minimum hours, no curriculum and no examinations, there can be no assurance that home-educated children will receive suitable education. There are no statistics about their GCSE and A-level results, or even their 3R competence, let alone university entrance; and the Badman report called for such research to be carried out. There can be no guarantee that home-educated children will receive reproductive, personal, social, health and economic education, as is compulsory-or will be-for others over 15; nor will they receive any guarantee of careers guidance. There is no assurance that migrant children who are being educated at home, even if they can be tracked, are learning English.
	I have blogged about this on your Lordships' website, lordsoftheblog.net, along with the noble Lord, Lord Soley, and each of us has received about 200 replies. Some use arguments that must have been used in the late 19th century to oppose the introduction of free and compulsory primary education. Others, understandably, withdrew children from school because of bullying, special educational needs, or poor local schooling. Others have a belief that children can just learn autonomously without being taught. I wondered how this worked with, say, physics, and fear that those children are being experimented on in a way that may blight their only chance in a lifetime to be presented with the knowledge and life skills that they will need.
	Some of the home educators expressed contempt for the state in all its manifestations. None mentioned the welfare of the child. Some home educators were clearly dedicated and successful, and I could see no reason why they should not register. They seemed overwhelmingly middle class, and it struck me that the provision of home education must be an expensive effort, involving not only the likely sacrifice of a career outside the home by the educating parent, but, as has been mentioned, payment for all the outings and extracurricular activities that are usually provided by the school-not to mention the examinations and equipment. The home educators were insistent that their children had socialising experiences, although whether it is correct to include trips to the supermarket, as one did, or learning French with a grandfather learning at the same time, was open to question.
	One does not know how representative they are, and the level of resentment struck me as worrying in itself. It cannot be ruled out that girls in particular, possibly from cultures which expect them to marry early and never work, are denied the opportunities they would receive in school, and might be sent away or into forced marriages, with an even smaller chance of rescue than exists at school. I am not for a moment conflating child abuse with home education, but there is a need to see the child. In albeit very different circumstances, the NSPCC recently called for the law to be changed to allow social workers to see children at risk alone. In Britain, we pride ourselves on the law of habeas corpus. Habeas corpus must extend to our children as well.
	It is inadequate that the local authority will be able to see the child only once a year. I should have thought that it would be better-albeit expensive, I appreciate-to produce the child every quarter or six months. The child should have the right to talk alone to the inspector. Fear of strangers is no excuse; or rather that is the very excuse that has been used when there have been failures to meet a child's needs which could have been avoided, had that child been produced. A child cannot go through youth without meeting doctors, dentists, repair men and so on. Two weeks' notice of a visit by the inspectors in the Bill is possibly too long; one week should be adequate, and in cases of concern there ought to be the right to visit without warning. Where a parent appeals against refusal to register, the child should be sent to school at once and not allowed to continue at home, pending appeal.
	In sum, our registration system will be weaker than that of most countries. Most US states have a more structured system, and opting out is forbidden in Germany. Your Lordships should not be deterred by the strong wording of the home education lobbyists. There needs to be a way for the home-educated child to be seen and heard, for samples of his or her work to be produced and for rigorous tracking of existence and outcome. I therefore strongly support this part of the Bill.
	The hour is late, and I will just say a couple of words about media access. Clauses 32 to 42 and Schedule 2 arguably do not belong in this Bill. They deal with a system for allowing more public knowledge of what goes on in family courts, which has been the subject of controversy. There are arguments for privacy, and there are arguments about knowing what goes on-especially when apparently harsh decisions leak out into the public. For a year, reporters have been allowed to sit in on family proceedings, but only allowed to report the gist of those proceedings. The provisions of the Bill would allow authorised publication; this is rather complicated and time might be wasted on deciding what it is. It is also feared that only one side might be reported as more attention-grabbing-that is the allegations reported, and not the rebuttal.
	Clause 40 allows for publication of sensitive personal information to be brought in. It will be reviewed after 18 months, but arguably grave damage might be done in the mean time. There is, I believe, no impact assessment yet; this will be carried out only on review. Nor has there been an impact assessment of media access to the family courts so far. However, the Children's Commissioner for England has funded research to establish children's views on media access and transparency in family proceedings. It will not surprise your Lordships to learn that by and large the children interviewed were opposed to the media being allowed into family courts to hear their cases, because they would be less willing to talk about what had happened to them, they were concerned that their identity might be revealed, and, understandably, they did not trust the newspapers with sensitive information.
	The children wanted their views to be considered before deciding whether or not the press should be admitted. This reflects Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which I referred to earlier: the child has the right to be heard, "in proceedings affecting them". One cannot therefore but agree with the view of the Law Society: it may be wrong to introduce this new provision about publication of sensitive information in this last-minute Bill. The system of public access and publication should be reviewed from the point of view of cost and effect, and for now, it says, Clause 40 should be deleted.
	The principle of the welfare of the child should guide us in deciding both the points I have raised; the welfare of the child should decide the controversies in the Bill.

Lord Layard: My Lords, I strongly welcome the Bill, especially the clauses which make personal, social and health education compulsory subjects in the national curriculum. I should like to talk about that.
	I had the good fortune to be a member of the Good Childhood Inquiry, and we were one of the many organisations that recommended what is now included in the Bill. In her opening remarks, the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, said nothing much about her party's attitude to this key issue. I will make clear why it is so important that this goes into law. Of course, it is not an original idea: the ancient Romans believed in a healthy mind in a healthy body. However, it is more important now than ever. For example, there have been four comparable surveys of 15 year-olds in Britain. These national samples show that the number of youngsters who suffer from emotional problems is now twice as high as it was in the 1970s. The same is true of the number suffering from behavioural problems. To reverse these trends we need a major rethink of the purpose of education so as to make it as much about the development of character as about competence.
	That means many things. It means major changes in the ethos of many of our schools, especially our secondary schools, so that mutual respect becomes the central feature of all relationships in school. However, that cannot be legislated for. What can be legislated for is that a specific part of the week be devoted to the development of the life skills laid down in the national curriculum for PSHE. These include understanding and managing your emotions, understanding other people and learning to help them wherever possible, understanding the dangers of unhealthy living, understanding the implications of sex and the obligation to care for a sexual partner, and so on.
	It is often said that it is the job of parents and not schools to handle these issues. That might work if parents did a good job. However, I should like noble Lords to consider the following facts about sexual relationships in Britain and the Netherlands, where sex education begins in primary schools. In Britain, there are five times as many teenage births. Among young adolescent boys in Britain, only 14 per cent of those who had had sexual experience said that their main reason was that they felt love and commitment. This compares with 56 per cent of young adolescent boys in Holland. Not surprisingly, in Britain only 50 per cent of the couples used contraception, compared with 85 per cent in the Netherlands. These figures speak for themselves and totally justify the approach of the Bill to sexual relationships. Indeed, I would go further and support the clearer position on SRE that was requested earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone.
	Much more important than that is moral education, more widely considered. No society has ever flourished where the moral education of young people was left exclusively to the parents or family, without other adults being involved. When I spoke on these matters at a conference only a couple of years ago, a questioner came up to me afterwards and said, "Are you saying that schools should provide moral education? Do you not realise that you are not allowed to say that?" Well, I was saying that, and I hope that that will be an important result of the Bill.
	A crucial issue must be considered: how these things can be taught. They are not easy to teach, especially in secondary schools. They must be taught by teachers in the school and not by outsiders brought in without teachers being involved. They must also be taught by teachers who are qualified to teach them. Starting with primary schools, all teacher training should include a basic minimum of life skills training. In primary schools, every teacher will have to include this in their basic class teaching. We are already seeing very good results from the teaching of social and emotional aspects of learning, under the SEAL programme introduced by the Government a few years ago. However, at secondary level the topics become much more difficult-as do the students. There is a requirement for much more specificity and authoritative detail in these topics, as there is in every subject.
	I taught history in a secondary school. That was a specialist subject. Teaching life skills should also be a specialist subject in secondary schools: it should not be taught by whoever has a gap in their timetable. It should not be contracted out, as has been suggested in some quarters, to voluntary organisations. It has to be taught by people who are recognised as authoritative by the students and the school. Furthermore, what we actually have to have in secondary schools is the teaching of life skills as a specialist subject taken within the postgraduate certificate in education-not necessarily by everyone teaching life skills, but there must be a core body of specialists teaching this subject in the school and helping the other teachers to do so.
	Teaching of life skills, as of every other subject, should be evidence based; and there are evidence-based ways of teaching these very difficult subjects. There are programmes that have been developed in many countries where we know, from studying the outcomes by randomised controlled trials, how these programmes actually affect children. We do not always know that in the way we teach French but we could know it in the way we teach life skills; and we ought to be using evidence-based programmes-I happen to know one very well, the Penn Resiliency Program, which is now being taught in 22 schools in Britain. There are enough to make us feel confident that we could teach this subject properly. We ought not to be making it compulsory unless we are confident that we could teach it properly. That has always been the best argument against making it compulsory. We need to proceed rapidly to develop the expertise and to get together the knowledge worldwide that exists of how to teach the subject. It is because I think that that is possible that I support the clause.
	I have spoken at length on this because it is so important, and because I worry about what the Conservative Party's attitude to PSHE really is. We are in a pre-election period, and the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, in her opening manifesto-if I may call it that-said nothing much on this point. It would be extremely helpful if, when he comes to wind up, her colleague could tell us where they stand on this.

Lord Ramsbotham: My Lords, when I first joined the Army, I was introduced to an acronym by my first company sergeant-major, the word KISS, which stands for "keep it simple, stupid". It is quite late, and I do not want to enter into any of the discussions which have been so eloquently and impressively deployed in the House this evening. Instead, I would like to draw attention to three things that I feel are missing from the Bill which, had we had a Committee, I would like to have seen included, because I believe that they are missing not just from this Bill but from other Bills that we have discussed on the Floor of this House. I will refer to them by the clauses in the Bill.
	I would first like to draw attention to Clause 10, which refers to areas of learning for the first and second key stages in the curriculum. Proposed new Section 83A(3) of the Education Act 2002, introduced in the clause, refers to,
	"understanding English, communication and languages".
	Clause 10 also introduces proposed new subsection (2A) of Section 87 of the 2002 Act, which says that,
	"the Secretary of State may by order specify in relation to the areas of learning set out ... such assessment arrangements, as the Secretary of State considers appropriate".
	We are in the age of the information revolution, but unfortunately, while the land of blog and Twitter may occupy people, the ability to communicate verbally with people is dangerously lacking in far too many of our young people. As I have said on the Floor of this House before, lack of communication skills is, in many ways, the scourge of the 21st century. I do not believe that it is right that we should have an education system which does not begin with enabling all children to communicate with the teacher, and therefore engage in the system. Unless they can do that, there simply is no engagement with the education that we are talking about.
	In two instances, we know that action is being taken on that. The National Health Service in Northern Ireland has laid down that every child is to be assessed at the age of two for their communication abilities. That not only identifies possible special educational needs and learning difficulties, but acts as a trigger as to where some help may be needed. In the recent apprenticeships Bill, it was agreed that every young offender would receive assessment when they went in to a young offender institution to a scheme laid down by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and the Children's Communication Coalition. We have done that because we realise that the children coming into young offender institutions at the age of 15 are lacking something which, if they had been provided with it earlier, might have prevented them going down the crime route which ended up with them in a YOI. If we recognise that that it is necessary at 15, why not do it much earlier before education starts?
	Two weeks ago, I went to Walsall to launch an impressive speech and language assessment scheme, which a secondary school was starting. It had realised that children were coming to it from primary school unable to communicate properly, which was damaging their engagement with what the secondary school had to teach. That was not a start-up, because it was taking on board a very successful scheme pioneered in Salford a long time ago. Therefore, I would have hoped to have some acknowledgement in the Bill that that assessment is essential if all the rest is to be provided.
	Secondly, Clause 31, which refers to young offender education, states:
	"In carrying out of their duties under those provisions and in carrying out any other function in relation to the youth justice system ... a local authority shall comply with any directions, and act in accordance with any guidance, given to them by the Secretary of State".
	That concerns me, because if every local authority is to conduct its own syllabus and make its own curriculum, there will be considerable inconsistency in provision throughout the country, which will hamper young offenders who are moved between areas and young offenders who may be sent to one part of the country who live in another. A whole lot of factors could make the provision of education worse
	I therefore raised that with the Minister last week when we met, and she kindly wrote to me today explaining:
	"Local Authorities will need to adhere to statutory guidance",
	which will include a curriculum embracing suitable education to meet reasonable needs. I accept that, but I ask her to confirm exactly who will lay down what those reasonable needs are and what suitable education is. The offender spectrum is vast in ability and need. If a funding agency, the Young People's Learning Agency, is funding something linked to guidance that may not be abundantly clear, we do not have a satisfactory system. It needs tightening.
	That goes back to what I have said before on the Floor of the House: there is a need for the "what" to be laid down very clearly so that the "how" can be delivered appropriately not just for the child concerned but also for the part of the country in which they live.
	The last group to whom I shall refer is covered by Schedule 1. Those are children who might be described as having special educational needs, children who have exceptional provision of education and therefore might qualify for Clause 9 provision. They may need a power for the community to provide facilities in Clause 15. However, I think that really they come under the duty of arrangements to identify children not receiving education. These are two groups of children who all too often slip through the net. One is children who are in care. When you go into a young offender institution it is frightening to see the large number of children who have come from care and look at the lack of education that they have had. Many of them have had a large number of care interventions, so it is hardly surprising that their education has been fragmented and inconsistent. I believe, however, that it is essential that something serious is done to try to put some coherence into the education of these people because they will arrive in adulthood seriously undereducated, and it is our fault.
	Another group being missed are the asylum-seeking children who are distributed among the social care systems throughout the country. They are not merely related to the port or airport of entry. What happens to them is entirely a lottery according to what the local social service in that part of the country decides to do. Some are left in bed-and- breakfast accommodation with absolutely nothing. Some are given access to education. Some have voluntary education schemes, including beginning to be taught English. But these are children who have dropped below the radar and nobody appears to be responsible for getting a grip of what is happening to them. I believe this Bill could provide the vehicle for laying down conditions for that to happen, which is why I would have proposed it if we had the possibility of having a Committee stage further on in this Bill. I regret that there may not be time for that but I still believe that the Government should take these issues on board.

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, this is a curate's egg of a Bill but I am bound to say that the good parts are very much outnumbered by the bad. Given that this will probably be our only opportunity to reflect from these Benches on the matters proposed, the lack of debate on some parts of the Bill in another place, the last-minute amendments introduced by the Government and the fact that my noble friend Lady Sharp is recovering from an illness, I may have to speak for longer than I normally would. I hope that your Lordships will accept one longer speech instead of two shorter ones on this occasion.
	It is tempting to start with the parts of which I approve, but I think that it would be more logical to comment sequentially on the major issues as they appear in the Bill. I will look first at Clauses 1 to 6, which concern pupil and parent guarantees, complaints, home-school agreements and parental satisfaction surveys. In my view, the vast majority of this is meaningless, overprescriptive and bureaucratic. Clause 1 defines a set of ambitions for pupils and parents. My early ambition was to become a doctor; I then wanted to be an interpreter of foreign languages; I landed up as a biologist, a teacher and a politician. I really do not see that it is up to the Government to poke their nose into the ambitions of pupils or parents. In any case, the Bill is extremely woolly about the liabilities of schools in this regard and the mechanism for enforceability of these ambitions. Unless proper funding is available to provide all schools fairly with the ability to abide by the guarantees, this whole thing becomes a whingers' charter and a waste of time for a lot of head teachers.
	At the Commons Report stage, the Government amended the Bill to provide stronger safeguards to protect head teachers and governors from liability on the basis of individual guarantees and from frivolous or vexatious complaints. However, there remains an issue of whether or not the guarantees constitute a contractual obligation. With school budgets under increasing pressure in the next few years, the delivery of all the guarantees will become increasingly difficult. In these circumstances, it must be up to the head teacher to prioritise, and their priorities may not be in line with those of an individual parent. It must be counter to the Government's intended purpose if the guarantees are seen as merely another tick-box mechanism.
	I am aware that for certain pupils home-school agreements have been enormously helpful. However, it is quite unrealistic to expect a school of 1,000 pupils or more to individualise them and to do it every year. I believe that they work best when they are individualised. That is why I feel that, although parents and pupils should be expected to abide by or support the school rules and school behaviour policy, home-school agreements should be used to help pupils who are having problems and their parents to engage with the school. Parental satisfaction surveys are a survey too far. Many schools do them anyway, and local authorities have their own ways of finding out how well schools are performing. Asking parents questions about schools that their children do not yet attend will be a poor basis on which to gain sound information.
	Clauses 7 and 8, on SEN, have been widely welcomed. Indeed, they are crucial to many children. However, the proposals could be further strengthened by also allowing a child's school to appeal. The pupil's school will be well placed to know about the inadequacies of SEN provision. Where the parents are unwilling to take an appeal to the SEN tribunal, it may be in the best interests of the child to let the school do it.
	Clause 9, on exceptional provision, is welcome, but it is crucial that an appropriate independent person should be the one who decides whether it is in the best interests of the child to provide full-time education. This clause was amended during its passage through the Commons to make it clear that, in deciding whether it is in the interests of a child with physical or mental health problems to receive full-time education, local resources could not be used as an excuse. However, given the wide lack of understanding of conditions such as autism, several organisations have urged that appropriateness should be assessed by someone with experience and expertise in the child's condition.
	The proposed changes to the primary curriculum, as recommended by Professor Jim Rose, appear in Clause 10. While I regret the Government's dismissive attitude to the Cambridge Primary Review, I think that these proposals move in the right direction, although they are still far too prescriptive.
	The noble Lord, Lord Layard, has outlined the many good reasons for incorporating PSHE into the statutory curriculum, as Clauses 11 to 14 propose. I agree with him and I will not repeat what he said. However, the Government have watered down this measure until it is almost unrecognisable. My first disappointment was when I saw that they will allow parents to withdraw a child from PSHE until he or she is 15. Each year in England and Wales, around 300 girls under 13 become pregnant and, since 2002, there have been more than 63,000 pregnancies among those under 15. Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show that, since 2002, 15 girls aged 10 have been pregnant, so it is clear that the age of 15 is far too late for young people to obtain this information. These facts simply reinforce the need for this teaching for all children.
	The right of parental withdrawal was introduced through the Education Act 1993. It currently affects any child or young person up to the age of 19, so I suppose that the age of 15 is at least a step in the right direction, although it is insufficient. International human rights obligations towards children and young people are clear. As the European Court of Human Rights has ruled, the parental right of withdrawal is unnecessary and should be repealed. It found that, so long as the education provided is balanced, objective, critical and pluralistic and the child can access other forms of lawful education, the state can refuse parental withdrawal from sex education. Allowing a parent to withdraw their child from SRE interferes with the child's rights under Article 10 of the ECHR, on freedom of expression, which includes the right to receive information.
	My second disappointment was when the Government inserted subsections (8) and (9) into Clause 11 at the last minute in another place, where they were hardly discussed. Many bodies, including the JCHR, have expressed serious concerns about this. Under the original wording, all schools were to teach PSHE according to the same sensible principles in Clause 11, but faith schools will now be able to ignore these principles where they believe them to conflict with the religious character of the school. As the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, said, the Bill now says that heads and governors can ignore principles such as accurate and balanced PSHE that apply without exception to other schools. Whatever the Minister says, that is the impression that has been spread about. On 5 March, the Catholic Herald said:
	"Catholic schools uphold the teachings of the Church in all that they do. This applies, in particular, to all work about sex and relationships education. They robustly teach, for example, about the sanctity of life and do not and would not promote abortion. We do not expect the situation to change in the light of the Children, Schools and Families Bill".
	That is a clear indication that these schools do not believe that they have to abide by the principles in the Bill. I think that the Government have let children down by doing this and it puts a black cloud over what should have been a major step forward for children's rights.
	Clause 19 provides for school improvement partners, or SIPs, not only to give advice but also for other prescribed services. Without the ability to insert appeals into the Bill in this House, we on these Benches do not believe that these changes should be made.
	Clause 20 is about the new report card. We on these Benches have argued consistently that current school accountability mechanisms are unduly focused on pupils' academic performance and should be more concerned with what schools do to support the development of the whole child. We do not believe that the new proposals address that. Any close reading of the report card prospectus can only lead to the conclusion that this has the capacity to become a bureaucratic nightmare. Had the school report card been proposed as a replacement for league tables, it would have deserved serious consideration. As it is, it appears to be an additional burden and difficult for parents to evaluate.
	The current system is inequitable and demoralising for teachers. A primary head told me recently about his local head teachers and how many of them were planning to leave the profession. He said:
	"I work with many very talented head teachers, and in the last two years, four who work locally have decided to retire early as the demands are now too great. Teacher morale is very low in many schools due to excessive workload, and replacement head teachers are very hard to find".
	I do not believe that these proposals will change that state of affairs.
	Clauses 23 to 25 are about the teacher licence to practise. There was limited scrutiny of this in another place, with more questions raised than answers given. In a recent speech, the Minister of State, Vernon Coaker, told a group of new teachers that the licence would be,
	"included within the normal performance review mechanisms".
	I ask the Minister whether this would mean that the appraiser could effectively remove a teacher's permission to teach. Will the General Teaching Council have to have regard to whether a teacher has received a full entitlement to professional development, as determined by their annual performance management review? This proposal falls between two stools. It neither gives teachers a proper right to continuing professional development nor makes it any easier to get rid of incompetent teachers.
	Clause 26 deals with home education, which has been one of the most contentious issues in the Bill. The problem is that the Government have confused the child's right to an education with a child's right to safeguarding. They have ignored the powers that social workers already have with regard to the latter. The death of Khyra Ishaq was nothing to do with home education, despite what has been suggested in the press. It was a safeguarding issue. Social workers visited the house because of numerous calls from her head teacher expressing concern for her welfare. They did not see her alone and made no attempt to ascertain her wishes and feelings-clearly contrary to existing guidance. That only serves again to emphasise the need for primary legislation to make it quite clear that social workers must see the child separately in any care proceedings. If we had a Committee stage, I would have tabled that amendment.
	On the substantive issue of home education, we on these Benches support those who want to home-educate and understand that it is usually a positive choice. The noble Lord, Lord Soley, made a thoughtful and interesting speech, but his comments tended to reinforce my view that we need a whole lot more consultation. We want very light-touch regulation and not this regulation. We are concerned that the government proposals, which are rushed, ill thought out and heavy-handed, are in danger of enforcing a one-size-fits-all education. We regret that the Badman report has given the impression that home education is more likely to be related to child protection issues than school education. We believe that it is quite sensible for home educators to notify local authorities that they are home-educating to enable them to support local parents in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, mentioned. They cannot do that if they do not know where the children are. Of course, if children get in contact with the authorities, it will soon be spotted whether there are safeguarding issues or not. You get things done only if you take people along with you and it is clear that the Government are not taking home educators along with them in this case. At that point, you should stop and think again.
	Clause 28 extends the power of local safeguarding children boards to require individuals and bodies to supply relevant information to assist them to perform their "functions". While most organisations are happy to provide information for serious case reviews, they are concerned that the boards have a very wide range of functions far beyond those. In the drive to protect children, it is crucial that their rights to privacy and confidentiality are maintained. Many noble Lords have talked about the fact that these measures could deter them from asking for help. That is something that concerns me very much. Independent schools have also questioned whether the duties would contravene their contractual arrangements. How do these new provisions comply with obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998 to collect information for a specified purpose?
	The last highly contentious issue is the effect on children of the measures for reporting family courts in Clauses 32 to 42. While greater transparency in our justice system is desirable, the framework for the reporting of family proceedings by the media should always seek to protect the privacy and safety of the children and adults involved in an appropriate way. Along with many of the professional bodies involved, I have considerable concerns about the effect of these proposed measures-again, many noble Lords have said the same. The Government should first evaluate the impact on children, the courts and CAFCASS of alternative methods of improving transparency, including the current pilot initiatives to anonymise family court judgments that started only about three months ago and certainly have not been evaluated. We do not believe that changes to legislation should be made until this has been done.
	Finally, in another place an amendment was laid to clarify the law on the reasonable chastisement defence and limit it to those with legal parental responsibility. The Government, accepting that there is a loophole, have now asked the Chief Adviser on the Safety of Children, Sir Roger Singleton, to review the use of physical punishment in part-time educational settings and by others who may be acting in loco parentis and to report back by the end of March. At the Report stage, the Secretary of State confirmed that the Government would respond to the report on the day that it was published. In the light of the fact that we may not have time for a Committee stage in your Lordships' House, can the Minister say how the Government plan to carry out Sir Roger's recommendations and to fulfil the pledge made by the Secretary of State?
	There is evidence of children being mistreated in madrassahs, Sunday schools in some Christian sects and other voluntary forms of care. Beliefs that children can be witches or possessed by evil spirits and need to be physically punished prevail in certain African Christian churches within the UK. All physical punishment has already been banned in other voluntary provision and part-time education of 12.5 hours or more a week. There can be no justification for failing to protect children in the remaining voluntary settings. I look forward to the Minister's reply.

Lord Bates: My Lords, I rise to respond to the debate from the Opposition Benches. It has been of extraordinarily high quality and a quite astonishing level of expertise has been brought to bear. I want to try to weave as many of the thoughtful contributions into my remarks as possible, but time is running out, so I will keep my speech as brief as I can. No doubt the Minister will be able to respond with support from what must be one of the most sizeable Bill teams I have ever seen assembled. At a time when I am sure the pupil to teacher ratio in primary schools is doing pretty badly, it is nice to see that the ministerial adviser ratio is in a very healthy state indeed.
	The Bill is a political afterthought, and that is why it has been brought forward at this stage in the Parliament. It is very much about making political points for debate. So be it, and we shall respond to them. The first point I want to make from these Benches is on the complexity of the Bill before us. My noble friend Lady Verma commented on this in opening the debate from these Benches. She talked about the complexity, bureaucracy and centralised control that we are witnessing. That was added to by my noble friend Lady Bottomley and was powerfully remarked on by the noble Lord, Lord Alton.
	I was struck by a couple of statements in the Minister's opening remarks. First, she said that education had been at the heart of this Administration and that after 13 years the education system was in a position of which one could be proud. I shall look at that statement in a little more detail because many people would take a contrary view. They would point to the fact that half of all pupils leave school without achieving five or more A to C grades at GCSE, including English and Maths; 300,000 pupils are suspended from school each year for bad behaviour; every year more than 100,000 children-one in five-leave primary school unable to read or write properly; and that after 13 years of missed opportunity we have dropped from fourth in the world for science standards to 14th; from seventh in the world for literacy standards to 17th; and from eighth in the world for mathematics to 24th.
	Coming from an inner-city part of Tyneside, I have a life long belief in the power of education to narrow the gap between the most disadvantaged and most advantaged in society. It is one of the most important instruments a civilised society can use to narrow that gap. In my case, it began to be narrowed in Gateshead only when, under the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher, a city technology college was established in a town where the expectation of people staying on and going to university was limited; only 10 per cent of pupils in Gateshead stayed on at that time. Now, as a result of the city technology college raising the bar in terms of expectations, we have seen what can be achieved. That school is regularly sending 63 per cent of children on to good quality universities and large numbers on to Oxbridge universities, nailing the myth that because people come from disadvantaged backgrounds they are incapable of achieving the highest levels of academic success. We on these Benches certainly adhere to that. It is therefore particularly galling after 13 years that two-thirds of working class boys aged 14 have a reading age of seven or below. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, referred to that figure and the implications that it has.
	What makes the decline even worse, more tragic and costly is that the gap is widening between the richest and the poorest. This year, nearly a quarter of a million children left primary school unable to read, write and add up properly; overwhelmingly they were from the poorest families. This year, more than half the children leaving comprehensives failed to achieve basic GCSEs; again, overwhelmingly they were from poor families. Nearly 40 per cent of those children eligible for free school meals failed to get a single C pass at GCSE. This year, hundreds of schools entered no children at all for either A-level history, geography, physics, chemistry or biology-and invariably those were schools with the poorest families.
	This legislation does nothing towards narrowing the gap. In fact, even the Guardian, no less-at this point noble Lords opposite may wish to pay attention-on 8 May 2009 pointed out:
	"Britain under Gordon Brown is a more unequal country than at any time since modern records began in the early 1960s, after the incomes of the poor fell and those of the rich rose. As a result, income inequality at the end of Labour's 11th year in power was higher than at any time during Margaret Thatcher's premiership".
	Would the Minister like to come back to the Dispatch Box and still claim that this is a record of which they are proud?
	Faced with this staggering record of failure, what do we find is the target in the legislation that is needed to reverse this terrible record, particularly among the poorest in our society? The answer, of course, is to attack home schooling, when these are parents who are making huge sacrifices for the benefit of their children. Home schoolers are not failing children in this country; the state is. It is not the parents who take an interest in their children that we should be worried about; it is the parents who do not take any interest in their children that we should be worried about. When will the Government wake up to the problems that they face in their own state system? When will they stop obsessing over the spelk in the eyes of others, namely the home schoolers, and start addressing the plank in their own eye in terms of failing standards?
	The Government are patronising about parents and yet they fall in love with legislation, while all the evidence points in the opposite direction. The Bill will mean that, instead of parents being presumed to have the right to educate their children, they must in future apply for that right to be returned to them from the state. That is surely anathema in a civilized country, particularly when those parents do an outstanding job of educating their children.
	Then, of course, the target turns to personal, social, health and economic education. At this point I wish to respond to the invitation of the noble Lord, Lord Layard, who invited us to say a bit more about what we would do. First of all, we need to look at the record. We have had some 30 years of believing that, if only you provide an education for people and tell them about conception and the alternatives to abortion, then, basically you would solve this problem-education is the answer in these areas. We beg to differ, because the numbers beg to differ-this statement was very powerfully made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, in his remarks.
	Teenage pregnancy rates are now double the western European average: teenage pregnancies account for 7.1 per cent of all births in England, compared to an average of 3 per cent in western Europe. A study shows that when we are dealing with sexually transmitted diseases, those numbers have doubled since 1997. Over the past decade the number of young girls under the age of 16 seeking abortions has risen by 27 per cent. If the answer was simply more education, surely the trend ought to be heading in the other direction.
	Our proposal would be to have a greater partnership with parents. Parents care passionately about their children, about their life chances. They understand that their life chances are limited should they have children early on and that there is nothing better for inspiring young people and tackling the issue of sexual relationship education than inspiring them with their own potential for their life and what they can achieve going forward.
	Some comments were made about the importance of character-the importance of moral education. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bradford made the point very powerfully about teaching people not only the functionality, but also the moral context and the importance of character in arriving at those conclusions. Legislation already exists in this area. A question was asked as to what we would see as good legislation. Good legislation recognises the importance of the parent in the raising of their children, which places an emphasis on morality and on character, which trusts parents and school governors.
	In the Education Act 1996, the last Education Act of the previous Conservative Government, we set out the following broadly based curriculum. We said it should be one which,
	"(a) promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society, and
	(b) prepares pupils at the school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life".
	That seems a straightforward statement: allowing parents, teachers and governing bodies to interpret that in their own setting would seem to be the best way forward.
	As for pupil-parent guarantees, which have been referred to on many occasions, rather than removing burdens on teachers and giving them the powers they need to deal with disruptive pupils, we see a proposal which could open the floodgates for litigation against schools and undermine their work and authority. As my honourable friend Michael Gove has put it:
	"The fundamental problem with ... guarantees is that the Government have run out of money and are reduced to printing promises that they know they cannot redeem".-[Official Report, Commons, 19/11/09; col. 163.]
	They are like some bankrupt regime-maybe they are a bankrupt regime-that keeps the printing press going even though it knows that the pieces of paper that it is sending out are worthless because it does not have the resources and reserves behind it with which to deliver.
	At the end of this long Parliament, we are in great need of change that will raise standards of education in this country. Instead we have a Bill that concentrates on bureaucracy at the expense of action, centralised control at the expense of trust and narrow prescription at the expense of freedom. The Bill is a monument to a Government who have run out of ideas for addressing the real challenges of raising standards of education in this country and so hide behind guarantees, entitlements and agreements instead of taking real action to create genuine change.
	Everyone knows what goes into successful education. It is great leadership in a school, inspiring teachers, the support of parents and well behaved children. We would move towards a framework in education that reflected just those principles. We would give teachers the powers that they would need to keep order in the classroom. We would deliver more robust examinations, reflecting a more rigorous curriculum. We would guarantee freedom, independence and choice by removing regulatory barriers to make it easier for educational charities, groups of parents and teachers, co-operatives and others to start new independently run state academies. The Bill will do none of these things and it will do little to address the problems of poor standards in education, particularly those impacting on the poorest in our society.
	The need of the hour is for a Government who will free up teachers, trust parents and inspire children, especially from poor backgrounds, to achieve their personal best. The Bill fails that task and it fails in restoring the broken society. It is time that we had change in order to give those children a chance.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, what a privilege it is to respond to this tremendous debate. I thank all noble Lords who have taken the time today to contribute to it.
	I will say up front that the hour is challenging and so is the task. I undertake to write to noble Lords if I fail to pick up points of detail. I will do my best to cover in 20 minutes the remarks that I want to make, and I hope that noble Lords will bear with me on that.
	The Government have always been passionate about education. We came to power promising that education would be at the heart of our policies, but our education system was literally in disrepair, with teachers worrying more about the drips coming through the roof than about how they were going to get through the day. There were real challenges in simply getting schools operating in more than a hand-to-mouth fashion.
	We have made significant and sustained improvements to schools over the past 13 years, and output from our schools, which the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, calls for, has never been better. I challenge the Opposition to stop talking down the efforts of our pupils and teachers in this country and to talk up the amazing achievements of our young people. More children are leaving school equipped to enter the workforce, or go on to further or higher education, than ever before. Now just one in 13 schools is judged to be failing-in 1997, half of all secondary schools were judged to be failing.
	We have a strong record of investment and rising standards in education. More young people from disadvantaged backgrounds than ever before are going to our universities, which we are all very proud of. In 2009, 80 per cent of children left primary school with the reading levels expected of their age, and achievement in English is up 17 per cent from 1997. Seventy-nine per cent of children left primary school reaching the expected level of achievement in maths. This is up 17 points from just 62 per cent in 1997. It is important to evaluate outputs and to recognise these achievements. We had 240,000 young people starting apprenticeships, compared to just 75,000 in 1997. We now measure the outcomes for children in care, to see how they are achieving in terms of educational output-and, yes, at last we are starting to see them achieving better.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, when she spoke, which I have to say feels like some time ago, suggested that we are introducing too much regulation. I can reassure her that we are always conscious of the impact of our proposals and we are always sure to introduce new regulations only where they are strictly necessary and appropriate. It is this Government who, from a zero start, introduced 200,000 support staff in schools-not 20,000 as I said in my opening remarks-to help teachers and to let them concentrate on what they do best, which is teaching. We are the Government who have created a 10 per cent of time entitlement for teachers to do the preparation and planning work that they want to do, so that they can promote the excellence that we require as parents.
	However noble Lords put it, I will make no apology for the guarantees that we are introducing in this Bill, as it is by their introduction that we will ensure that all children and their families benefit equally from what is on offer through our schools, especially the vulnerable who might otherwise lose out. Similarly, for example, that applies when we talk about changes to the home-school agreement and the introduction of a local authority survey for parents. These will ensure that all parents take their responsibilities seriously and have their views on local school provision taken seriously. Not to introduce these measures risks a piecemeal approach to change and not giving everyone a voice, which cannot be right.
	When it comes to the question of the pupil-parent guarantees, it is this Government that set out our commitment to education right from the very start. It is because of the work that we do now that we can be clear about what parents and children can expect from the system. Through this Bill, we are providing guarantees for pupils and parents. This is a landmark development. I thank my noble friends Lady Blackstone and Lord Soley who spoke very eloquently about the importance of these measures-that pupils and their parents will, for the first time, be able to hold schools and local authorities to account if they are not meeting their commitments.
	Many of these guarantees build, as I know Peers recognise, on existing legal duties and non-statutory programmes, but through their inclusion in this Bill we will ensure that all children, including the most vulnerable, will receive the education to which they are entitled. There must and will be redress for a guarantee to have meaning. We expect complaints to be resolved at a school level, and that is why the amendment about "tort" in the other place was so important. Only then, after it has not been possible to resolve matters at the school level, can they be referred to the local ombudsman. Therefore, there will be important means of redress.
	There has not been much mention of the proposed licence to practise, but we need to be clear that this is not about not trusting teachers to teach; it is about giving the teaching profession the status that it deserves. It is about creating that mechanism and using it to drive up standards by giving teachers the entitlement that they deserve for continuing professional development.
	The Bill also allows for the introduction of the new school report card, which will enable parents to make meaningful choices about their children's future. This is something on which we are working closely with stakeholders, parents and teaching organisations, to make sure that the reconciliation of the different elements of the report card really work in a meaningful way.
	On curriculum reform, I have to admit that I am even more bemused now than I was before about the Opposition's proposals about the curriculum. They are becoming increasingly contradictory. They are a contradictory combination of, on the one hand, a backward, nostalgic look that thinks children must learn lists of kings and queens of England, names of rivers and algebra and, on the other, reckless hand, market forces letting rip with a Swedish free-school experiment. This is not what our children need to set them up for success in adult life, nor what employers are looking for. It is not what higher education institutions are calling for. The proposals include, among other things, I believe, relaxing planning requirements so that you can open a school anywhere-in an office block or a car park. These are the gimmicks, not the serious guarantees that are in the Bill. These gimmicks do not add up to a coherent approach to delivering a good education for every young person. They are about starving some schools while this project goes ahead in an ad hoc way. So I am bemused, though I am sure that at some point someone will put me right.
	Thinking about curriculum reform, I was particularly appreciative of my noble friend Lady Blackstone's remarks about the Rose review, and the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. The Bill proposes reforms to the primary curriculum to ensure that children receive the thorough grounding they need in reading, writing and maths, based on a huge amount of expert consultation and advice. We have looked at how the primary curriculum can be freed up so that teachers can concentrate on doing what they do best, and to ensure that the children they teach get the best possible education. These changes have been widely welcomed by teachers and others involved in our schools system.
	The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, asked about the future of the Masters in Teaching and Learning. We have made £30 million available for the initial rollout of the Masters in Teaching and Learning. Teachers have started to enrol in the north-west and in challenging schools nationally. The MTL will provide an important source of continuing professional development over time. This is something that I know noble Lords will be interested to hear more about.
	There was much debate about PSHE and the relevant proposals, principles and clauses in the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, talked about Catholic schools and his concerns about the implementation of the Bill. We recognise that a one-size-fits-all approach to SRE will not work. That is something that the noble Lord will not be surprised to hear me say. That is why the programmes of study are written at a very high level and why schools can still teach SRE in a way that reflects parents' wishes and the ethos of the school. However, there is a common core of knowledge and skills that all children should receive. It is not right that schools can choose simply not to teach about contraception or same-sex relationships. What we propose achieves the right balance. It does not, for instance, require Catholic schools to teach young people where to access an abortion, but it requires them to teach young people where they can access health information and advice.
	My noble friend Lord Layard also welcomed the contributions on PSHE. I was very grateful for his remarks and those of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bradford-I was pleased to hear his welcome. We know that the Bill sets out several guiding principles for the teaching of PSHE as part of the national curriculum. Schools will be required to comply with these. They have been designed to provide a set of clear and consistent messages about how PSHE should be taught. They will protect against inappropriate, inaccurate and unbalanced teaching, particularly on some of the more emotive elements of PSHE.
	For the record, I must be clear. The principles are as follows. Information must be presented as accurate and balanced. PSHE must be taught in a way that is appropriate to the age, and religious and cultural background of pupils-and that reflects a reasonable range of religious, cultural and other perspectives. PSHE must be taught in a way that promotes equality, encouraging acceptance of diversity and emphasising rights and responsibilities. These principles are absolutely key and are designed to offer protection from one-sided arguments. We need this Bill because at present there are no such principles in our statutory system. It would be possible, therefore, for a school to provide PSHE teaching which was inaccurate, unbalanced, biased and which took no account of the diversity of our 21st century England. Therefore, it is extremely important that we have this Bill and its provisions on PSHE.
	Guidance will be produced, including more information on the principles. We will be consulting on this and it will be in place to support schools as they prepare for the statutory implementation of PSHE by September 2011. I hope that that offers important reassurance. My noble friend-

Baroness Walmsley: How will the Government check how these measures are implemented in schools in practice at the chalk face?

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, one would normally expect all elements of the national curriculum to be fully inspected by Ofsted. As part of the national curriculum, that would be the case for PSHE as well. I am getting a very slow nod coming from the source of my inspiration over there, but that is what I would expect.
	I reassure my noble friend Lady Blackstone and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that the effect of the government amendment which was accepted in the other place is slight in practice. It simply puts beyond doubt something that we believe was already clear. All schools will still be under a duty to comply with the principles regarding accuracy, balance and diversity, as I have just described. Faith schools will still-as now-be able to teach pupils about the stance of their church, so Catholic schools, for example, will be free to communicate the Catholic Church's views about the use of contraception, but they will be required to teach that contraception exists, is available, and to say that the church's point of view is not the only one. I also welcome the recognition by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that the age of withdrawal is a step in the right direction.
	I am still focusing on curriculum. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, talked about the Rose review. I will write to the noble Lord on that. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, talked about the challenge posed by teenage pregnancy rates and how they are influenced by a wide range of factors. He was very clear about his concerns, but there is growing evidence in this regard. We know that sex and relationship education programmes have a positive impact on the behaviours that lead to teenage pregnancies. There is a great deal of evidence available that I would be happy to share with noble Lords. I agree also with the noble Earl about teacher training in PSHE. We are taking a number of steps beyond this Bill. We are delivering £2 million of funding each year to train teachers and professionals delivering PSHE in schools. As noble Lords would expect, we are working with the Training and Development Agency for Schools.
	I appreciate that home education is a very controversial issue. I was very interested in-and have thought very carefully about-the comments made in the debate. My noble friend Lord Soley spoke very eloquently about the dilemmas involved, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. The noble Baroness talked about balancing the rights of the parents and the right of the child to education. I listened very carefully indeed to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, as I always do. As we know, the Bill ensures standards of education-that is the key driver here. The noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, was particularly concerned about what was driving standards of education. Access to a standard of education is important.
	The registration and monitoring of home educated children will not be onerous. Many noble Lords wanted that to be clear. Local authorities must have the tools they need to tackle the small number of cases where the education provided is not satisfactory. I want to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, that the ContactPoint directory will be very helpful in promoting registration, along with a whole range of other issues. It is key that we promote access to a suitable education for all children, as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, stressed so clearly.
	With regard to the concerns expressed by the noble Baronesses, Lady Verma and Lady Bottomley, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, the Bill does nothing to change the rights of parents to educate their children. Parents will continue to decide whether their children should go to school or whether they wish to educate them at home. There is nothing in the Bill that requires parents to teach the national curriculum, take certain qualifications, or follow certain hours, but it is right that local authorities have the tools they need to fulfil the duties that we place on them.
	The noble Lord, Lord Laming, as ever, spoke extremely eloquently about Clauses 28 and 29 and I welcome his support. I agree that the purpose of a serious case review is not to act as an inquiry or to apportion blame but to help agencies learn the lessons and improve practice. I agree that success depends on the voluntary contributions of all involved, relying on families and neighbours to share aspects of their lives which they might otherwise hope to keep confidential. I agree, too, that it is best to gather all the available information if we are to have confidence in the serious case review recommendations which are so key to moving forward. Serious case reviews are different from inquiries. I stress the important role of the executive summary as a published document and the key role that Ofsted plays in ensuring that it is an accurate summary of the main report so that the public can have confidence in the recommendations. I agree that undertakings of confidentiality made in the production of these important documents must be honoured and that we must have consistent policies in the handling of all serious case reviews. I thank the noble Lord for advising us and giving us the benefit of his experience once again. I will have to wait until I have had Sir Roger Singleton's review before I can answer the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, but I will make sure that she is properly and promptly informed about the Government's plans on that.
	There was much concern about the family courts. In response to the challenge from noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, the Government are committed to the paramountcy principle, to the Every Child Matters outcomes, and to promoting the best interests of the child. We are committed to ensuring the privacy of children and families involved in court proceedings but there is widespread recognition that the family justice system needs to become more accountable to the public that it serves. There were some very detailed questions on this and I will respond to each and every one in full. There were 23 amendments in the other place looking at strengthening the review process for the transparency measures. We hear the concerns that have been raised and we will work hard with partners and stakeholders to ensure that we are offering the reassurances required.
	The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, as ever, made some very important points about the needs of vulnerable children. I can commit, on the record, that, as I said in my letter to him earlier today, the legislation requires local authorities to ensure that there is enough suitable education and training to meet the reasonable needs of young people detained in the youth custody system. That is very much the responsibility of local authorities, and I would be happy to meet further with him to discuss that and any other matters of concern that he may have.
	I should conclude, because I have overrun by three minutes. I reiterate my commitment to follow up on the concerns that have been raised to make sure that we do the work and that we do it properly. I thank noble Lords for this debate. Building on our record of improving standards, this Bill will help to deliver a world-class 21st century schooling system that will allow every child and every young person, whatever their interests and abilities, to reach their full potential. I commend the Bill to the House.
	Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Allhallows Staining Church Bill [HL]
	 — 
	Reported from Committee

The Bill was reported from the Unopposed Bill Committee with amendments.
	House adjourned at 10.21 pm.